


Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most

by smithpepper



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hunter X Hunter Big Bang, M/M, Minor Character Death, New York City AU, Slow Burn, angst and flirting and adventures and springtime in the city, hxhbb19
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-02-04 08:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 41,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18601045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithpepper/pseuds/smithpepper
Summary: Living in New York City is tough for anyone, and it’s no different for Leorio Paladiknight. He’s a medical school dropout, he’s up to his ears in debt, and his best friend Pietro has been in the hospital for months. But when he meets a feisty blond barista named Kurapika on a beautiful spring afternoon, his life takes an unexpected turn.Written for the 2019 Hunter X Hunter Big Bang event.





	1. The Only Living Boy In New York

**Author's Note:**

> I moved to New York recently and got inspired to write a story about Leorio being a broke New Yorker like me. Except for Daily Beans (Kurapika’s coffee shop), all of the places in this story are real. I hope it adds a layer of enjoyment if you’re familiar with the city—I had a lot of fun sending the characters to some of my favorite spots. 
> 
> This is about Leorio and Kurapika, but I also wanted to write about Pietro, and how I imagine that his illness affected Leorio. This is not the happiest topic, obviously, and if you are triggered by descriptions of hospitals or death, this may not be the story for you. 
> 
> Mostly, though, it’s a love story. Thank you for reading!

    Leorio’s phone is dead.

    It’s no surprise, really. His phone has been on its last legs for a while now. His roommate Zepile and best friend Senritsu have been nagging him for months to buy one of those battery charger packs to carry around, but it’s an expense that he can’t justify at the moment. Living in New York City is already a constant hemorrhage of cash, and forking over $30 on a hunk of metal that will give his phone a few extra minutes of juice isn’t worth it.  
  
    Not that it isn’t a hassle, though. Because of his ailing phone, Leorio is always taking the wrong subway line and forgetting what time he’s allowed to visit Pietro at the hospital and missing calls from debt collectors. The apartment he shares with Zepile is constantly out of toilet paper and dish soap, because Zepile can’t remind him to replenish their stock when he’s out and about. It’s a real pain in the ass.  
  
    And if Leorio lived in a city where people were just a little bit friendlier, then it wouldn’t be such an issue. Maybe in the suburbs, bartenders and cafe owners and pharmacists wouldn’t mind if people sat quietly in the corner of a room charging their phones. They would understand that it was a normal component of twenty-first century living. They wouldn’t scold people. They wouldn’t treat it like a crime to plug something into to an outlet for ten minutes.  
  
    But apparently that’s too much to ask for in Manhattan, because currently Leorio is locked in an fierce argument with an irate barista at Daily Beans.  
  
    “For Christ’s sake! I’ll come back and buy a coffee later, I promise. I just need to charge it for two minutes!”  
  
    “Sir, you’ll have to leave the premises at once. It’s company policy. Customers are forbidden from accessing the outlets without purchasing a beverage. You’re disturbing the other customers,” the barista huffs, glaring up at him.  
  
“Look, I don’t have any money on me. Sue me! I’m pretty sure it’s not illegal to not buy something at a place!”  
  
    “It’s company policy,” the barista repeats stubbornly. “I don’t understand why this is so difficult for you.”  
  
    Leorio adjusts his glasses and peers down his nose at the guy. He’s a good head shorter and about seventy pound lighter than Leorio, but he’s tensed up and ready to fight like a boxer. He shakes his feathery blond bangs out of his intense eyes, tapping his foot against the tiled floor.  
  
    “Am I bothering you?” Leorio calls towards the handful of customers buried in their laptops. “Is me using this outlet really bothering anyone? Huh? Is it ruining your day?”  
  
    In true New York fashion, the other customers pretend not to hear him, except for a pink-haired girl slurping at a milkshake who pulls out her cell phone and starts dialing.  
  
    “It’s under control,” the barista snaps at the girl, and she pouts and puts her phone away. “Sir, if you won’t leave, I’ll have to remove you by force,” he continues, rolling up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt and untying his apron.  
  
    “Are you kidding me? You’re gonna kick my ass for charging my phone?” Leorio spits. “For Christ’s sake. You know what? Fine. I don’t even want your shitty coffee. It’s worse than the bodega stuff! I’ll go to Starbucks instead!”  
  
    He yanks his charger out of the wall and pockets his phone, breathing hard through his nose. The barista makes an outraged noise and stalks back to the register, muttering darkly under his breath.  
  
    “Asshole,” Leorio hisses to himself as he leaves the cafe and shoves through the crowded sidewalk outside. “What a prick. What is wrong with people like that?”  
  
    He continues to grumble all the way home on the subway, earning himself alarmed looks from nearby passengers.

* * *

    It’s late March, and it’s one of those mockingly beautiful spring afternoons that always happen when you’re having a terrible day. Golden daffodils are blooming in the park. Billowy white clouds drift across a warm blue sky. A light breeze shakes the tender green buds of the ash trees lining the avenues. Everyone looks windswept and hopeful. New pairs of tennis shoes are are still crisp and white, unsullied by months of summer thunderstorms and overflowing muddy sewers. Even the garbage piling up on the curb doesn’t smell too bad yet. But Leorio is determined to be in a shitty mood.  
  
    When he gets back to the apartment, he’s in the mood to kvetch. Tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter with a clatter, he grabs a beer out of the fridge and wanders into Zepile’s studio.  
  
    Technically their cramped Chinatown apartment is a three-bedroom, but it’s just Zepile and Leorio living here. The third bedroom is devoted to Zepile’s enormous collection of artwork and supplies. The only furniture in here is a sagging yellow couch and a small table covered with plaster splatters and jars of murky paintbrush water. Half-finished canvases are stacked in piles in the corners of the room, and every surface is coated with a fine dusting of powder from Zepile’s sculpture work.  
  
    Today Zepile is hard at work finishing a life-size replica of the Mona Lisa. It’s a stunningly accurate replication. Zepile has an uncanny knack for copying artwork; it keeps him busy and well-paid but creatively unfulfilled.  
  
    “What’s this one for?” Leorio asks, gesturing with his beer towards the painting. “Another casino in Atlantic City?”  
  
    “Bingo!” Zepile says grimly, carefully adding details to the trees in the background. “They’re so goddamn tacky in New Jersey. Who do they think they’re fooling, exactly? Nobody’s gonna believe that some shithole on the beach owns the Mona Lisa. It’s in the Louvre. Everyone knows that.” He rolls his eyes and squeezes a lump of brown paint onto his palette. “It’s so dumb.”  
  
    “I mean, if you’re dumb enough to go to a casino in Atlantic City, you might not know about the Louvre,” Leorio points out, taking a long gulp of beer. “They paying you well?”  
  
    “Duh. Big bucks. Like I said, casino. At the rate I’ve been getting commissions lately, I’m never gonna have time to work on my solo show.”  
  
    “The one with all the doll heads? And the, um, thing with the nude models? And the broken dishwasher that plays the Billy Joel songs?  
  
    “Yep. I really think the MOMA might be interested!”  
  
    Zepile finishes painting the Mona Lisa’s left eyebrow and moves onto the folds of her dark gown. “I just need one solid month of really digging into it, you know? It’s so close to coming together.” He clenches his fist for emphasis.  
  
    “Ah,” Leorio nods, privately wondering how Zepile would be able to tell when the thing was done. “Cool, man.” He finishes his beer and lobs it into the overflowing waste basket in the corner. “Wanna grab something to eat?”  
  
    “Sure. One sec. Lemme just do her other ear real quick.”  
  
    While Zepile finishes up, Leorio drifts around the apartment, picking at junk mail and old piles of school work. His stacks of homework are gathering dust. Sighing, he flips through an essay he did last October about advances in late-stage oncology treatment.

    He remembers staying up for three days straight to finish that one. He had been delirious with fatigue, but the research was so satisfying to complete. He earned a 98% on it.  
  
    “Ready?” Zepile says from behind him, and he drops the essay guiltily.  “Where to? Dim sum?”

    “Sure. Golden Dynasty?”

    “Sounds great. I’m fucking starving. Painting that stupid dress took all day,” Zepile complains, buttoning up his coat. Leorio throws him a sorrowful expression and rubs his thumb and index finger together.  
  
    “You know what this is, Zep?”  
  
    “What?”  
  
    “I’m playing the world’s tiniest violin for you, jerk. At least you have a job!”  
  
    Zepile laughs, chagrined.  
  
    “Ah, shut up. You’re right. But shut up.”

* * *

    As always, the restaurant is completely packed. Big families sit clustered together at the enormous round tables, ordering platter after platter of aromatic pork buns and shrimp dumplings. Frazzled waiters dart around carrying impossibly heavy trays of food and shrieking orders in Mandarin into their headsets.  
  
    Leorio and Zepile are shuttled towards a small table near the back and poured cups of steaming jasmine tea. When the carts come around, they each pick out a couple of plates to share. Leorio likes the green tea duck crepes, and Zepile favors the pan-fried beef wontons. They’re both so hungry that they eat in silence for a while, dunking the oily dumplings in chili oil and wolfing them down.  
  
    “How’s Pietro doin’?” Zepile asks through a mouthful of rice. “You said he got another surgery yesterday?”  
  
    Leorio chews his bite of vinegary mustard greens for longer than necessary.  
  
    “Yeah, they went in and tried to take out more of the bigger tumor in his left lung.” He takes a sip of tea. “It’s...well. It’s not...”

The corners of his mouth pull down, and he finds himself briefly unable to continue. “Not great.”  
  
    “You want a beer?” Zepile asks, flagging down a passing waitress. “Let’s have another beer, yeah?”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    “Um,” Zepile continues once they’ve procured two lukewarm bottles of Heineken, “are you gonna be able to, uh. I mean. I know it’s rough, but, do you think you’ll have the, um, the March...”  
  
    He trails off, looking horribly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, man, but Mrs. Chen called twice today. I’d spot you again, but I’m broke until I finish the Mona Lisa.”  
  
    Leorio feels himself flush from his hairline to his toes. Their tiny 89-year-old landlady was absolutely terrifying on the phone, but luckily for Leorio (and unluckily for Zepile), Mrs. Chen only spoke Cantonese, which Zepile had picked up from his grandmother.  
  
    “God. I’m sorry. Yeah. O-of course. I’ll—I’ll figure something out.”  
  
    Zepile nods, squirming in his seat. “For sure. I know how it is. I just—”  
  
    “No, fuck, of course. I’m really sorry it’s so late.”  
  
    They fall silent and poke at their sauce-covered plates, both too embarrassed to make eye contact.  
  
    When a waitress comes by with orange slices and fortune cookies, they leave a pile of cash on the table and step back outside into the blustery March evening.  
  
    “You ever been to that place Daily Beans by the hospital?” Leorio asks as they walk home, each carrying a greasy bag of leftovers. “That espresso bar on 16th?”  
  
    Zepile lights a cigarette and frowns.  
  
    “Um...the one with the Japanese owners? And they’re really snobby? I used to go when I was dating that nurse chick at NYU.”  
  
    “Oh, right.” Leorio plucks the cigarette from Zepile’s paint-stained fingers and takes a long drag. “Is it Japanese? I figured it was Italian.”  
  
    “No, the family that owns it is definitely Japanese. They import all the beans specially from Tokyo or something. Why?”  
  
    “Man. This one guy they have working at the register is such a dick. I went in to charge my phone for ten seconds and he chewed me out for not buying anything. He was literally ready to fight me. Over a phone charger!”  
  
    “God. New Yorkers are the worst. What did you say?”  
  
    “Eh, I told him the coffee was worse than the bodega and that I’d go to Starbucks instead. And then I left.”  
  
    Zepile snorts with laughter, finishing his cigarette and flicking it into the street.  
  
    “Look out, everybody! We got a real tough guy over here!”  
  
    “Oh, cut it out. I didn’t want to make a scene.”  
  
    “Sounds like you already did,” Zepile points out as they approach their apartment building. “Hey, do you mind if I invite Wing and Morel over later? They wanted to watch the Mets game.”  
  
    “Yeah, of course. I gotta get going before visiting hours are over anyways,” Leorio replies, handing him his bag of leftovers. “They kick you out earlier in the ICU. Can you put this away for me?”  
  
    “Oh, right.” Zepile gives him a searching look, fumbling for his keys in his coat pocket. “Hey, listen. If you...if you need a few more weeks on the March rent, it’s fine. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Mrs. Chen.”  
  
    “Thank you. Zep...I’m really sorry.”  
  
    “Don’t sweat it. And hey, tell Pietro to use protection with the nurses,” Zepile says, winking. “See you later, then.”  
  
    Leorio laughs weakly and waves goodbye as Zepile unlocks their building door and disappears into the dark entryway.    
  
    Heaving a sigh, Leorio half-jogs toward the subway station. It’s about 8, so as long as the trains aren’t too screwed up, he’ll get an hour with Pietro. These days, that’s about all Pietro can handle.  
  
    Leorio would stay longer if it were up to him, but he respects his friend’s increasingly frequent demands for privacy. He wants Pietro to still feel like he has some agency. It’s the least he can do. Lung cancer has taken just about everything else away from Pietro.

* * *

     “He’s a little out of it,” whispers a nurse when Leorio ducks into Pietro’s dark hospital room. “We had to up the Ambien today.”  
  
    Leorio glances over at Pietro, who’s listing to one side in bed and moving his hands like he’s underwater.  
  
    “Why? He was on 15 milligrams already yesterday.”  
  
    “He was very agitated earlier. Trying to get out of bed again. We can’t risk him tearing open the stitches from yesterday.”  
  
    “Can you please call me next time you change a dosage?” Leorio asks irritably, flipping through the prescription chart taped to the wall. “I’d like to keep track of everything. For the insurance.”  
  
    “We did call, sir,” the nurse says briskly, adjusting Pietro’s feeding tube.  
  
    “Really? When?”  
  
    “Around 4 pm. It went straight to voicemail.”  
  
    Leorio checks his phone. It’s as dead as a doornail. He squeezes his eyes shut.  
  
    “Ah. Right. I’m sorry.”  
  
    The nurse flashes him an apologetic smile before rushing out of the room.  
  
    The hospital is chronically understaffed. In the four months that Pietro’s been in the ICU, dozens of his nurses have quit or transferred to different units. It makes coordinating his care even more complicated.  
  
    “Hey,” Leorio says softly, approaching the bedside. “Hey. How are you doing, bud?”  
  
    “L’rio,” Pietro rasps, adjusting his oxygen tube and struggling to sit up. He grins drowsily. “Did you see that nurse? She’s hot!”  
  
    “Uh huh. Zepile said to remind you to use protection, though. The last thing we need is for you to knock up your ostomy nurse. Gross.”  
  
    “Chicks dig the poop hole,” Pietro says with a laugh that quickly turns into a violent cough that shakes his bony shoulders. He spits a trickle of blood into a napkin before turning to look at Leorio again. His dark eyes dance with humor, vivid against his jaundiced skin.  
  
    “So. What’s up? Bone any cute girls? Did the Mets lose? Please tell me you have something interesting to talk about. I’ve read this Reader’s Digest four times today and I want to blow my brains out.”  
  
    “The Mets play tonight,” Leorio says, scratching his stubbly cheek and sinking into his usual spot on the metal windowsill. “I’ll text you later if they don’t let you watch it. Um. Zepile is making this stupid art thing out of two hundred doll heads, and our apartment is full of headless dolls right now, so the odds of me successfully sleeping with anyone at the moment are very low. Uh...what else. I dunno.”  
  
    “Heh. Zep. What a lunatic. Did you talk to the financial aid office people at your school yet?”  
  
    Leorio coughs and looks away.  
  
    “Oh, they were, uh.” He clears his throat. “No. They’re—closed for spring break right now, I think.”  
  
    “You said that two weeks ago. Get a new excuse,” Pietro wheezes. He closes his eyes and leans against the pillows, wincing. “These sutures hurt like a bitch. Can you go ask them for more morphine?”  
  
    “Pietro...” Leorio starts, hesitating.  
  
    “I barely had any today. And it helps me breathe better.”  
  
    “You need to take it easy. You’re too hooked on it.”  
  
    “I’ll just ask for more when you leave, you know,” Pietro says churlishly. “You’re not my mom.”  
  
    “Yeah, well, I know more about it than you do! Do you want to get addicted to this shit like Michael Jackson and die of an overdose?”  
  
    “You should finish med school before you lecture me,” Pietro snaps. “Save it.”  
  
    Leorio bites back a scathing retort. Pietro has every right to be pissy, after all.  
  
    They sit in annoyed silence for a few minutes. Pietro turns on the TV and clicks through the channels before settling on a rerun of a Yankees game. He turns up the volume so it’s audible over all of the thrumming machinery in the room.  
  
    “Oh yeah. I got in a fight in a coffee shop today,” Leorio pipes up after a while, hoping to clear the air. “This guy was such a jerk.”  
  
    “Yeah?” Pietro says, brightening. “What happened?”  
  
    Leorio launches into a spirited retelling of the event, and Pietro cheers up and cackles appreciatively. The conversation carries them up until 9:15 pm, when the nurse comes back to chide Leorio for staying past visiting hours.

* * *

    Later, lying in bed with the lights off and the windows open, Leorio thinks about the blond barista.

    As maddeningly rude as he was, there was something about the firm set of his mouth and the determined glint in his eyes that makes Leorio’s gut do a strangled backflip. His hands ghost down the plane of his stomach and trail under the waistband of his flannel pajama pants.  
  
    _Wait. No. What?_ _  
_  
    He shakes his head, smirking to himself. _That’s crazy. No way._ _  
_  
    He closes his eyes and sifts through his time-tested memories, settling on a particularly nice encounter in the backseat of a car with a high school girlfriend. Breathing slowly, he remembers the softness of her skin and the warmth of her mouth. Wing and Morel and Zepile are drinking beer in the living room and talking noisily, but Leorio still tries to be completely silent.  
  
    When he’s getting close, he suddenly pictures the way that the barista glared up at him with those unsettling eyes, defiant and unafraid. He comes with a sputtering gasp.  
  
    Heart pounding, he lays on his back to catch his breath for another moment before rolling onto his side to stare out the window at the moonless sky.  
  
    He’s exhausted, but he lies awake until the first orange glow of dawn appears on the black horizon.

* * *

    “Zep! Dude! Do they all need to be out in the hallway?” Leorio groans, tripping over a pile of twenty or thirty headless dolls scattered across the living room floor. “Jesus Christ. I can’t even find my shoes.”  
  
    “Sorry!” Zepile yells back from his studio, ripping the head off of another doll. It comes off with a sickening pop. “I’ll clean ‘em up later, I promise!”  
  
    “If you win an award for this, you better share it with me!”  
  
    “Only if you’re my pro-bono fancy pants surgeon forever,” Zepile calls, throwing another decapitated doll into the living room. “Watch out! My aim is bad.”  
  
    Shaking his head, Leorio finally locates a pair of tennis shoes and sprints out the door.  
  
    He’s running late for a noon meeting with Doctor Carroll, Pietro’s pulmonary surgeon. It’s already 11:40 am. The train will take longer than walking the fourteen blocks uptown to the hospital, so Leorio sets off at a brisk pace.  
  
    A chilly drizzle is falling. He turns up the collar of his thin denim jacket, scowling and wishing he had worn something warmer. It feels like spring is still eons away. The city is gray and gloomy today, all wet concrete and rumpled pigeons and barren tree limbs.  
  
    Having freakishly long legs was a pain on airplanes, but at least it gave Leorio an unusually fast walking pace, even by New York standards, where it was something of a competitive sport to walk as quickly and grumpily as possible. He makes it to the hospital with five minutes to spare, choosing to sprint up the four flights of stairs to the ICU instead of waiting for the rickety elevator.  
  
    “Ah, Mister Padakino,” Doctor Carroll greets Leorio when he bursts into Pietro’s room, panting and massaging the stitch in his side. “I hope you’re well.” He offers a limp handshake.  
  
    Leorio likes Doctor Carroll, even when he screws up his last name. He’s a sallow-faced Irish guy in his late sixties, and he never beats around the bush like some of the other doctors. He’s looking somber today. Leorio’s stomach lurches with anxiety.  
  
    Pietro is half-asleep in bed, nodding off to one side. His breathing is unusually labored today; Leorio watches his chest jerk and convulse with every pained inhale. His face and hands are swollen and puffy, a telltale sign that his blood pressure is high and he’s retaining too much water. _They need to up his diuretics,_ Leorio thinks, frowning.  
  
    “Hi, Doctor Carroll. Thanks for meeting with us today,” he says, trying to catch his breath. After the cool weather outside, it’s uncomfortably warm inside the hospital. He dashes a bead of sweat from his temple. “So. How’s it looking?”  
  
    “Why don’t we step into my office down the hall?” Doctor Carroll murmurs, casting an eye in Pietro’s direction. “We’ll let him rest.”  
  
    “Okay,” Leorio says nervously, and follows him down the busy hallway to his dimly lit office.  
  
    He takes a seat in an overstuffed leather chair as Doctor Carroll settles behind his desk.  
  
    “I’m afraid I don’t have very good news today,” he begins, fixing Leorio with his icy blue gaze. “Unfortunately, the biopsy did not come back with the results we had hoped for. The tumors have metastasized even further than we expected.”  
  
    It’s not a surprise, but Leorio still feels like he’s been punched in the gut. He swallows hard over his dry throat and stares at his hands in his lap. The ticking of the clock on the wall becomes deafeningly loud.  
  
    “Okay. So now what? What next? When will we hear back from the Pfitzer trial?”  
  
    Doctor Carroll sighs and steeples his fingers together. “Leroy—”  
  
    “It’s Leorio.”  
  
    “My apologies, Leorio. Regarding the trial, we heard back this morning. I believe one of the nurses tried to leave a message with you, but—”  
  
    “They didn’t take him,” Leorio finishes, closing his eyes. “Damn it. Did they even say why?” He breathes through his nose and tries not to let his temper overwhelm him, but he wants to kick something. “I don’t understand why they can’t take him. If it’s experimental anyways, what’s the harm in trying?”  
  
    “The representative that I spoke with explained to me that they aren’t taking stage 4 cancer patients at this time. It’s out of our control at this point. Leorio, we...need to discuss what’s best for Pietro’s quality of life moving forward,” Doctor Carroll continues, his voice gentle but firm. “We may want to discuss palliative care.”  
  
    “No,” Leorio says at once, “no, we can’t—we can’t give up yet, not yet.” He clenches his jaw. “He’s barely out of surgery. Give him a week or two to recover, at least. A month. He needs time to heal up. Then he can start another round of chemo and radiation.”  
  
    “Palliative care is reversible at any time. If the patient wishes, they can always resume proactive treatment. But it may make Pietro more comfortable in the meantime.”  
  
    “That sounds great and all, but I know what palliative care is,” Leorio says bluntly, getting to his feet and brushing past the desk. “We’re not there yet. I’ll talk it over with Pietro. Thanks for your time.”  
  
    He leaves the office without another word, quietly seething. He’s too upset to go see Pietro right away, so he paces around the waiting room for ten minutes, trying to calm down.  
  
    It all comes down to money, obviously. Just like everything else.  
  
    Leorio would bet his right arm that the drug trial would have taken them if Pietro’s insurance hadn’t run out. And he’s sure that the hospital is pressuring Doctor Carroll to kick Pietro out of the expensive ICU and ship him off to the hospice ward. It makes sense from a logistical standpoint; the ICU is designed for short-term stays. A single day costs a staggering $15,000, and that’s not including prescriptions and surgeries.  
  
    When Leorio thinks about how many loans he’s taken out, four months into Pietro’s stay here at Mount Sinai, he wants to throw up. But what else is he supposed to do? Pietro has nobody. His mom died when he was in middle school, and his alcoholic dad fell off the map years ago. When he started coughing up blood nine months ago, there was no question that Leorio would help figure it out. After all, they’d been best friends since kindergarten.  

    Leorio chugs a paper cup of water from the nurse’s station and returns to the room. When he takes his usual position on the windowsill, Pietro stirs and rolls over to face him.  
  
    “I wan’ an espresso,” he says hopefully. “The hospital coffee is terrible. Do you think you could go get me a real one?”  
  
    “Um. Hold on. Did Doctor Carroll already talk to you?” Leorio asks, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “About how the biopsy went? And the drug trial?”  
  
    Pietro pretends not to hear him. “Leoriooooo. Please?”  
  
    “Hold on. Did he talk to you?”  
  
    “Yes. I don’t wanna talk about it,” Pietro says very quietly, his face darkening. “Not right now. Next question.”  
  
    “Pietro...”  
  
    “Not now. Espresso? Por favor?”  
  
    Leorio chews on a hangnail, deliberating.  
  
    “Um. There’s a Starbucks down the block. Just coffee? You want anything else?”  
  
    “Oh,” Pietro sighs, looking put upon, “well, if it’s just Starbucks, then never mind.” He rolls over in bed. “I was thinking about that place Daily Beans, but...no, no, don’t worry, just deny the guy with two months to live a real espresso. Imagine how bad you’re gonna feel when I die.”    
  
    “Oh my god, Pietro, you are the most annoying person alive,” Leorio complains, but he’s chuckling. “Fine. Good grief. Let’s make a deal. I’ll get you your fancy espresso if you can get that night nurse’s number for me.”  
  
    “Which one? Sandy?”  
  
    “Is that the redhead?”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    “Yeah, her,” Leorio nods, hopping down from the windowsill and stretching his long arms overhead. “Okay, so just a black espresso? Anything else?”  
  
    “Nah, that’s cool. Muchas gracias! You’re a prince!” Pietro calls after Leorio as he leaves the room. “My hero!”  
  
    “Yeah, yeah,” Leorio grumbles, waving back at him. “Save it for when Sandy’s around.”

    As he rides the elevator back into the lobby, he realizes what Pietro said back in the room.

    Daily Beans. _Oh no._ He can’t go back there. That barista will kill him. He’ll have to find somewhere else.  
  
    He gets out his phone to look up other coffee shops in the area, but, as always, it’s about to die, its battery hovering feebly at 1%. Opening up his maps app will sap its remaining life immediately, and he needs to save some juice in case Mrs. Chen or Zepile or somebody from the hospital calls.  
  
    “God _damn_ it,” he sighs, exiting the hospital and trudging unhappily towards Daily Beans.  
  
    Maybe the blond barista won’t be working. Nobody works full-time at coffee shops, right? Everyone does it to supplement their student loans or rock bands or aspiring acting careers or whatever. Maybe today is his day off. It’ll be fine.  
  
    When he arrives at Daily Beans, Leorio skulks up to the polished glass storefront and tries to get a glimpse inside. It’s one of those painfully hip modern cafes filled with minimalist furniture and exotic jungle plants, and a large ficus tree in the windowsill is blocking his view of the counter. A pink-haired girl seated at the bar notices him and raises her eyebrows, and he hurriedly straightens up and pretends to fix his hair in the reflection. As far as he can tell, there’s no sign of the blond barista, so he squares his shoulders and walks inside.  
  
    “Two espressos, please,” he mutters to the burly man working the register. “Black. No room for cream.”  
  
    “Speak up, sir,” the cashier intones, twirling the end of his impressive hipster mustache. Leorio would bet anything that this guy lived in Williamsburg. “Can’t hear you. What’s that you want?”  
  
    “Espressos,” Leorio repeats nervously, glancing around, “two, black, please, no room for—”  
  
    “Basho, I’ll take over from here,” says a familiar voice, and Leorio cowers instinctively. “You can go on break.”  
  
    “Wonderful. Thanks, bro,” says the mustachioed cashier gratefully, ripping off his apron and disappearing into the kitchen.  
  
    “Look. About the other day,” Leorio begins as the blond barista approaches the cash register. “I’m really sorry, I was just, um, having a bad day, but if I could just get those espressos to go, then I’ll be out of here in a second.”  
  
    He yanks a wad of crumpled cash out of his pocket and thrusts it onto the counter without bothering to count it, already turning away. To his surprise, he hears a soft exhale of laughter.  
  
    “It’s on the house. Don’t worry,” the blond barista says. He pauses to fire up the gleaming espresso machine. It rumbles to life with a hiss of hot steam. “I, uh, may have gotten carried away as well. I may have...gone overboard with my interpretation of our company’s policies. I regret my behavior. Please accept my sincere apologies.”  
  
    Leorio blinks, disoriented by his overly formal manner.  
  
    “Oh. It’s—er—it’s really not a big deal. I was being a jerk, too.”  
  
    “Perhaps we both let our tempers get the better of us,” the barista says, handing Leorio two steaming cups of rich-smelling espresso. His lips are twisted into a rueful half-smile that Leorio can’t help but return. Their eyes meet, and they study each other for a few seconds.  
  
    Leorio has never seen eyes like that; wide and glittering with a feline slant to them, their irises unnaturally dark and flat, almost black. Something in his gaze is so intense and direct that Leorio’s palms start to itch.  
  
    _Whoa._  
  
    He intends to thank the barista for the free coffees and get back to the hospital, but when he opens his mouth, what comes out is:  
  
    “What’s your name, anyway?”  
  
    “Kurapika.”  
  
    “Kurapika,” Leorio echoes. The name feels foreign and strange on his tongue. “Kurapika. Where’s that from, if you don’t mind me asking?”  
  
    “My parents were rather...unorthodox,” Kurapika says, a shadow flitting across his face. “What’s your name?”  
  
    “Leorio. Leorio Paladiknight.”  
  
    “Well, Mr. Leorio Paladiknight, it was nice to meet you on better terms today,” Kurapika says, brushing his bangs out of his wide eyes. “Enjoy the espresso. Newly imported beans.”  
  
    “Thanks,” Leorio replies, grinning. “Nice to meet you, again, too, Kurapika.”

* * *

    “Why are you so cheerful?”  
  
    “Hm?”  
  
    “You’re smiling like an idiot,” Pietro accuses, tossing his empty espresso cup into the trash. “What happened?”  
  
    Leorio sips his espresso slowly, savoring the last few drops.  
  
    “Oh. I dunno. It’s—it’s a nice day.”  
  
    Pietro glances out the window. Sheets of rain are falling from the slate gray sky.  
  
    “Uh huh.”  
  
    “It’s good, right? The coffee?” Leorio says, changing the subject.  
  
    “Yeah. It’s definitely gonna dribble out my poop hole in a minute, though.” Pietro probes cautiously at his ostomy bag, wrinkling his nose. “This thing is the worst. Like, it is literally the worst thing I can imagine. Why does God hate me so much?”  
  
    “Because you keep asking the nurses their bra sizes.”  
  
    “That was for scientific research! I was taking a survey.”  
  
    “And because you’re a perv,” Leorio reminds him, flicking his arm through the blankets.  
  
    “True. That too. I’m so goddamn bored in here, though. Can you blame me?”

    “Nah. I guess not.”

* * *

    Over the next five days, Leorio returns to Daily Beans every afternoon, but to his disappointment, he doesn’t see Kurapika again.

    He considers asking the other employees about it, but the idea strikes him as too creepy. It occurs to him that Kurapika might have been fired. It wouldn’t be surprising, given his behavior on their first meeting. The notion makes Leorio disproportionately upset.

    Pietro is in a bad mood this week. He’s petulant and uncommunicative with Leorio, and he lashes out at the nurses, snapping at them when they wake him up to take his vitals and administer drugs. Leorio checks on him every morning before retreating to the coffee shop, where he sits in the back and skims through his old medical textbooks. He drinks so much espresso that his eyelids start to twitch.  
  
    The debt collectors have been calling more frequently lately. Leorio knows it’s getting out of hand. He stopped keeping track a few months ago. Between the federal loans for his previous year of school and the money he borrowed from four different credit unions after Pietro’s health insurance ran out, the total must be mind-boggling by now. Even if he eventually goes back to school and gets a six-figure job as a doctor somewhere down the line, he’ll still be financially fucked for years. Decades. Maybe for the rest of his life.  
  
    He also knows that the longer it goes on, the worse it will get, but he can’t face it just yet. Once Pietro is in the clear, he’ll have to come to terms with the damage he’s done to his credit and begin the long process of digging himself out of this deep hole. But for now, when the phone rings, he immediately silences it and stuffs it back into his backpack before returning to his textbooks, a miserable knot of anxiety churning in his stomach.  
  
    On the sixth day, Leorio gets a call from his friend Senritsu as he’s sitting in the cafe. He almost silences the call out of habit, but when he sees her name flashing across the screen, his heart lifts. He puts his saucer over his mug of coffee before stepping outside to take the call.  
  
    “Hi! How are ya?”  
  
    “Hello, Leorio,” Senritsu says in her melodious voice. “Are you busy tonight?”  
  
    “Nope! What’s up?”  
  
    “My Juilliard flute ensemble is performing at the Rose Hall this evening, and the after party reception is short-staffed by a caterer. Would you like the job? It pays $125 for two hours of cocktail serving, and I can get you into the concert for free.”  
  
    “That would be amazing! Thanks! Do I need a tux?”  
  
    “We’ll have one for you there. It may be a little short, but it will work. Meet me outside of Lincoln Center at 7 pm tonight?”  
  
    “Yeah! Thank you so much! I really need work right now, this is great.”  
  
    “I’m glad,” Senritsu says. “See you tonight, then.”  
  
    Leorio punches the air in victory before going inside and sitting back down. Catering gigs were great. You got to eat all the leftover appetizers, and sometimes the bartenders would send you home with extra bottles of champagne.  
  
    Finishing the rest of his coffee in one gulp, Leorio returns his attention to his textbook with renewed vigor. He looks up hopefully to scan the room for a blond head, but Kurapika is nowhere to be found.

* * *

 

    Senritsu is an amazing flute player. Her tone is as sweet and pure as the liquid tolling of cathedral bells at sunset. When she played, even the most jaded New York critics closed their eyes and sighed with pleasure. Because of her busy teaching schedule, she only performed once or twice a year, but every time she did, the concerts sold out immediately.  
  
    Admittedly, Leorio can’t sit through too much classical music. It’s not that he doesn’t care for it, but listening to hours of quiet music in a dark room surrounded by half-asleep elderly people was a powerful sedative. His mind usually starts to wander before the first movement ends, and he finds himself peering around the dimly lit theater, hunting for interesting-looking people in the crowd.  
  
    Tonight is no different. To Leorio’s disappointment, Senritsu isn’t actually performing tonight; she’s conducting her quintet of elite flute students. From his seat near the exit in the back, he can barely see her diminutive form onstage. His view is almost completely blocked by an old lady’s enormous fur hat.  
  
    “Honestly,” he grumbles to another tuxedoed caterer to his right, “why would you ever wear something that stupid to a concert?”  
  
    The old lady hears him and whips around in her seat, clutching her hat and glaring. Leorio clears his throat and pretends to drop his program on the floor, ducking down in his seat to hide from her beady eyes. The other caterer stuffs a fist in his mouth to stifle his laughter.  
  
    The flute quintet is definitely great, but Leorio is growing restless and fidgety. The tuxedo is too small, he has a cramp in his leg, and his stomach is growling. He wishes they would hurry up and finish so he could start serving drinks and stealing appetizers. The piece they’re playing now is something avant-garde and squealing. It sounds less like music and more like a chorus of songbirds getting hit by a train. Senritsu always did have a soft spot for left-of-center composers.  
  
    Sighing, Leorio glances around the hall. The Rose Hall is a beautiful place, with high arched ceilings and intricately carved woodworking. Glittering crystal chandeliers cast a soft glow over the faces of the crowd. Since this is a student performance, the audience is fairly diverse tonight. There’s the usual assortment of rich uptown patron-of-the-arts types dripping in jewelry and smelling strongly of perfume and cigars, but he also spots some young Juilliard students scattered here and there. Many of them are Chinese and Korean, and some of the girls are dressed in vibrant silk hanboks and cheongsams. Other audience members are clearly Midwestern tourists, sporting fanny packs and excitedly snapping pictures with their overlarge cameras. Leorio snorts as he watches a particularly dorky couple accidentally poke a well-dressed Russian guy in the rib cage with their selfie stick. He looks aghast and swats it away as the wife apologizes silently.  
  
    The crowd bursts into wild applause, and Leorio jumps a little. He hadn’t even noticed that the piece had ended. Startled, he starts clapping loudly as Senritsu and the students take a bow before launching into the next selection, something dreamy and French.  
  
    The best seats in the house are up in the private balconies. Sometimes you could see celebrities up there, dressed in dark glasses and overcoats to avoid paparazzi attention. Once, at one of Senritsu’s solo recitals, Leorio was certain he saw Kim Kardashian sitting with David Bowie. When he told Zepile and Pietro about it later, they didn’t believe him.  
  
    He cranes his neck to see who’s up there tonight: a large group of Japanese businessmen in black suits, all listening intently and sitting up perfectly straight. Curiosity satisfied, Leorio starts to turn back towards the stage, until a glimmer of blond hair catches his eye.  
  
    The music is swelling into a crescendo. The audience around him is rapt. Senritsu conducts with her eyes reverently closed, waving her arms in sweeping, expressive gestures. Pulse racing, Leorio shifts in his seat to get a better view. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and squints, wondering if it was just a trick of the dim lighting.  
  
    Nope. It’s definitely the blond barista. Kurapika. He’s standing behind the Japanese guys, looking severe and elegant in a slim-fitting black suit. His face is unsmiling as his dark eyes sweep across the crowd. At one point he turns to mutter something to one of the businessmen, and Leorio sees the pink-haired girl from Daily Beans sitting in the very back of the balcony. Tonight her hair is curled into a dramatic pouf, and she’s wearing a complicated lavender mini dress. The way that the fabric is folded around her tiny frame makes Leorio think of the origami cranes that Zepile leaves scattered around their apartment. After a minute or two, Kurapika steps in front of the girl again, blocking her from view.  
  
    “D’you have a program?” Leorio murmurs to the caterer next to him. “How many songs are left?”  
  
    The guy leans over to whisper into Leorio’s ear in a noisy rush of breath.  
  
    “I think it’s almost over, but this is a really long one.”  
  
    “Thanks,” Leorio hisses back. He quietly unfolds his long legs from the seat and stands to leave. He’s in the middle of a row, and he has to squeeze his way past a dozen affronted old people before he reaches the exit.  
  
    “Sorry, sorry,” he mutters as several old ladies struggle to tuck in their knees. “Almost out. Sorry!”  
  
    When he reaches the door and bursts into the lobby, he releases the breath he was holding and tugs at his constricting bow tie. He doesn’t have a plan, exactly. He just knows that he wants to talk to Kurapika again, and if he waits up here, maybe he can catch him on his way out.  
  
    There’s a curious tingle of nervous energy building in his chest. Glancing around the empty lobby, he darts up the velvet-covered staircase towards the balcony.  
  
    A very old man working as an usher is sitting at the top of the stairs, blocking the door to the balcony seats. He’s dozing off, emitting quiet snuffling snores that ruffle his shock of fluffy white hair with every exhale. A stream of drool drips from his open mouth onto his corduroy jacket.  
  
    Leorio tiptoes forward and shakes him gently. He jerks awake with a snort.  
  
    “Mmm—whazzat?” He blinks dazedly and smacks his lips. “Who’s there?”  
  
    “Hey there,” Leorio whispers, “why don’t you let me take over? You can go take a nap.”  
  
    The man peers down his bulbous nose at Leorio, squinting in confusion.  
  
    “Who are you, again?”  
  
    “I’m another usher. Don’t worry,” Leorio says in a reassuring tone. “They, uh, sent me up here to take over your shift.”  
  
    “Well,” the old man muses, getting stiffly to his feet, “I suppose I can let you handle things from here. You said I can take a nap?”  
  
    “Yep. Go down to the box office and tell them that Paladiknight sent you,” Leorio replies as the man totters away. “Ask for Rosa.”  
  
    Rosa was a cute secretary who worked the ticket booth, and she had nursed a crush on Leorio ever since he started to come to see Senritsu perform. She was sweet, and would never turn away a sleepy old usher if he wanted to nap on the office couch.  
  
    “Yes, yes,” the old man mutters, waving vaguely back at Leorio as he shuffles towards the elevator. “Rosa.”  
  
    Once the old man is out of sight, Leorio sidles up against the balcony door and presses his ear against it. They’re still playing, but the piece sounds like it’s building up towards some kind of final climax. The music ends, and there’s a pregnant pause before the audience erupts into raucous applause and yelling.  
  
    “Encore! Encore!”  
  
    Leorio straightens up and fixes his bow tie. His heart is pounding in his ears.  
  
    When he hears the scraping of chairs and the clacking of dress shoes on marble from inside the balcony, he swings the heavy door open and stands at attention as the men file out, chattering in Japanese and tossing their folded programs onto the floor. Ten, eleven, twelve of the dark-suited men walk by, paying no attention to Leorio as he holds the door, before—  
  
    “Psst! Kurapika!” Leorio calls softly, trying to catch his eye as he approaches. “Hey!”  
  
   Kurapika, hovering close to the pink-haired girl, doesn’t even look in Leorio’s direction as he brushes past him. The girl glances up at Leorio in vague recognition for a moment before Kurapika places a hand on her back and marches her down the velvet staircase towards the cluster of Japanese men. After another thirty seconds, Kurapika’s blond head has disappeared into the rest of the crowd hurrying down to the lobby.  
  
    _What the hell?_ _  
_  
    Leorio leans against the wall, puzzled and deflated.    
  
    It was him, right? It definitely was. That golden hair, those strange dark eyes...Leorio has never met anyone who looks remotely similar to Kurapika. There was no way that was a doppelgänger. But why would he ignore him, after being so friendly the other day?  
  
    He becomes aware after a few seconds that his phone is ringing in his pocket. He answers it immediately; it’s the catering company. Whoops.  
  
    “Is this Leroy? We need you in the kitchen five minutes ago,” comes a flustered voice. “The reception is starting now. Where are you?”  
  
    “Shit. Sorry. Be there in ten seconds!”  
  
    Hanging up, he sprints towards the service elevators.

* * *

    An hour later, as Leorio is serving his fourteenth platter of canapés, Senritsu finally extracts herself from her throngs of admirers to come say hello.  
  
    The reception is taking place in Dizzy’s, the glass-walled jazz club on the top floor of Lincoln Center that overlooks Columbus Circle and Central Park. It’s one of the best views of the city. The illuminated buildings twinkle against the night sky like constellations. Onstage, a model-beautiful jazz singer in a long red dress is crooning out “My Funny Valentine”, accompanied by a bassist and pianist. Leorio can’t help but notice that they both look pretty bored; plunking away resignedly as the singer bats her lashes and gyrates against the mic stand.  
  
    “What’s the matter? You sound unhappy,” Senritsu says by way of greeting, a frown creasing her kind face.  
  
    “Oh,” Leorio starts, pausing to offer a tray of trout caviar to a nearby cluster of people, “it’s...it’s not a big deal. Don’t worry. But hey, nice concert! The kids sounded awesome.”  
  
    “Thank you. They should have practiced more, to be frank,” Senritsu sighs, adjusting the lapel of her midnight blue velvet blazer. “Rehearsal time is so limited as it is. There’s only so much I can do, as their instructor.”  
  
    “Coulda fooled me,” Leorio shrugs, stealing a bite of caviar. “I thought it was great.”  
  
    “So who were you sneaking out to see during the last piece?” Senritsu murmurs, taking a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. “I noticed that your heartbeat was conspicuously absent during the Ravel.” She flashes Leorio a faint smile.  
  
    “Oh. I had to—use the john.”    
  
    Senritsu narrows her eyes. “No you didn’t.”  
  
    “No I didn’t,” Leorio admits, flushing. He doesn’t know how she does it, but Senritsu is a human lie detector. You couldn’t get anything past her. “I was—oops, one sec, I’m all out.”  
  
    His tray is emptied again. He leaves Senritsu to rush back into the kitchen to restock.  Grabbing a plate of miniature desserts, he shoves back through the crowd of mingling concertgoers. He scans the crowd for the millionth time that night, searching for Kurapika, but neither he nor the group of Japanese businessmen are in the room.  
  
    He finds Senritsu over by the windows and rejoins her. She’s wearing her noise-cancelling headphones, a sure sign that she’s almost reached her limit for the evening, but when she sees Leorio reappear, she takes them off and smiles.  
  
    “Who are you looking for?”  
  
    “You, of course.”  
  
    “Besides me.”  
  
    “Ugh! Fine.” Leorio hands out a few creme brûlées before turning back towards Senritsu. “Do you know anything about the guys that bought out the balcony seats tonight?”  
  
    She purses her lips. “Hmm. I can’t recall hearing anything about them. What did they look like?”  
  
    “I think they were Japanese. Definitely rich. It looked like a corporate thing.”  
  
    “And they’re not here at the reception?”  
  
    “Nope. They took off right after the concert ended.”  
  
    Senritsu finishes her champagne, shrugging. “I’m not sure, but I can certainly ask around. Sometimes people use false names to reserve seats, through, to avoid attracting attention.”  
  
    “Right.”  
  
    “Why do you want to know, anyways? What are you up to?”  
  
    “Whoops, I’m out of tiramisu,” Leorio says cheerfully, extending the empty platter as proof. “Thanks for a great concert and the gig! Get home safe. Let’s walk around the park soon.”  
  
    Senritsu huffs in annoyance, but allows Leorio to kiss her goodbye on both cheeks before replacing her headphones and ambling towards the hidden backstage exit. She’s so small that he loses track of her in the crowd immediately.  
  
    It’s 10:07 pm, so his shift is officially over. Before he returns to the kitchen, Leorio pauses in the back of the club to listen to the band for a minute.  
  
    Noticing him watching, the singer tosses her long hair and preens a little.  
  
    “ _You go to my head_ ,” she sings, subtly hiking up her sequined skirt to reveal an expanse of shimmering tanned skin, “ _like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.._ .”  
  
    She catches his eye and winks.  
  
    He gulps, considering. It’s been an awfully long time, and it might take the edge off. Yeah. Maybe this is what he needs...but still.  
  
    His mind wanders back to the day in the coffee shop last week, the way Kurapika looked up at him with that lemon-twist smile, the playful arch of his eyebrows...  
  
    _Well, Mister Leorio Paladiknight, it was nice to meet you on better terms again today._ _  
_  
    It’s dumb, this infatuation. It’s just because he’s stressed about money and Pietro and school. That’s all it is; a diversion. He shouldn’t be thinking this way about someone who blatantly ignored him tonight.  
  
    Shaking his head, he scans the thinning crowd one last time for Kurapika’s slender figure. When he can’t find him, he glances back at the singer and offers a grin that she instantly returns, blushing, as the bassist thumps out a solo.

* * *

    “Mind if I smoke?”  
  
    “Nah.”  
  
    “You want one?”  
  
    “No thanks. I...better get going.”  
  
    The singer rolls over in bed to face Leorio, pouting.  
  
    “Noooo! Stay for breakfast, at least. We can go get bagels. There’s a great place on 70th.”  
  
    Leorio turns away and scrabbles around for his discarded tuxedo on the floor. He’s going to be in trouble; there’s a red wine stain down the front of the shirt, and the sleeve is torn from where it got hooked on a doorknob last night in their rush to get into bed. He’ll probably have to pay a fine. _You idiot_ , he tells himself sternly as he pulls on his rumpled pants.  
  
    “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay. Thanks for a nice time,” he offers, patting her hand awkwardly. “That was a lot of fun.”  
  
    She sits up in bed, the sheet clutched over her chest. “Yeah. Whatever.”  
  
    “Look, I—I’m sorry. Let’s get drinks sometime.”  
  
    “Uh huh,” she says sullenly, reaching for her cell phone and checking her texts. “That’s what they all say.”  
  
    Leorio lets it go. She has a point.  
  
    “Okay. Um. I’ll just—let myself out, then.”  
  
    She ignores him, lighting a cigarette and staring at her phone. He grabs his wallet and phone from the nightstand and scuttles out of her apartment.  
  
    Once he’s outside on the street, he exhales in guilty relief, closing his eyes and relishing the cool morning air on his tired face.  
  
    It’s only 7:47 am, and hospital visiting hours don’t start until 9. The hospital is on the way home, so he might as well go see Pietro before going back to the apartment to clean himself up. He heads for the subway, yawning and scratching his stubbly chin.

* * *

    The hangover hits when he’s on the train. His head starts to pound, his stomach lurches dangerously, and his mouth fills with metallic-tasting saliva. The thought of going straight into the hospital, with its harsh smells of disinfectant and illness, is overwhelming. He needs caffeine and carbohydrates as soon as possible. He leans his head against the rattling window, bemoaning his own stupidity.  
  
    His phone is on 1% and is showing 5 missed calls from the same number. He presses play on the first voicemail and listens in trepidation.  
  
    “This is the Rochester Credit Union. We are are calling today to reach Leorio Paladiknight regarding your recent unpaid loan. If you do not make a payment by March 17th, your loan will be regarded as delinquent, and—”  
  
    His phone dies with a morose electronic whimper. He puts his head between his knees, groaning. A homeless man across the row gazes at him sympathetically.  
  
    “Hey, brother. Whatever it is, it’ll be all right. God bless you.”  
  
    Leorio looks up, scrubbing his face. “Thanks.”  
  
    “You got any change, my man?”  
  
    He pats his pockets, but he knows he’s completely broke except for his overdrawn cards.  
  
    “I don’t have anything, I’m sorry. Take care.”  
  
    The homeless man grumbles darkly and returns his attention to a bottle of something in a brown paper bag. Leorio closes his eyes and waits for the pounding in his head to subside.  
  
    When the train stops at First Avenue, Leorio drags himself out onto the street and heads towards Daily Beans. He still has $12 in tips from last night in his pocket, and he intends to spend every cent of it on espresso and a bagel.  
  
    Thankfully the cafe is open when he arrives, but it’s totally empty. Leorio the only customer, and nobody is at the counter. He bounces on the balls of his feet for a while, staring longingly at the deli case full of croissants and pastries.  
  
    The door opens with a jingle. Leorio turns, expecting to see an employee, but it’s a skinny guy in a dark hoodie, staring at him with bloodshot eyes. His movements are erratic and jerky, and he’s muttering to himself and pacing back and forth. Now and then he fingers something in his pants pocket.  
  
    _Looks like a junkie_ , Leorio thinks, feeling uneasy. He considers leaving, but the guy’s blocking the door. Besides, damn it, he really wants some coffee, and Pietro was right, the hospital coffee was terrible.  
  
    Right as Leorio has decided that he’s going to suck it up and go to a Dunkin’ Donuts down the street, Kurapika appears in the kitchen door with his arms full of coffee beans. He takes one look at Leorio before dropping the beans noisily and rushing out from behind the counter, fists raised.  
  
    “What the—”  
  
    Before Leorio can register what’s happening, Kurapika is furiously dragging the junkie out of the cafe and hissing something in another language. The guy gulps at the air, his hands scrabbling at Kurapika’s airtight headlock. Once on the sidewalk, they engage in a brief but vicious fight. Leorio sees the flash of a knife.  
  
    He gasps and cries out, running up to the glass, but after another moment Kurapika deals a sharp blow to the man’s midsection, and he falls like a rag doll to the curb. Kurapika spits something down at him before dusting off his hands and walking calmly back into the cafe like nothing happened, leaving the man in a limp heap in the gutter.  
  
    “My apologies,” Kurapika pants, picking up his apron from the counter and tying it around his waist. “That’s the third time he’s tried that stunt this week. What can I do for you?” He looks up at Leorio, and his eyes widen in recognition. “Oh! It’s you. Hello again.”  
  
    “You’re bleeding,” Leorio cries, pointing at a red gash on Kurapika’s left forearm. “Oh my god! We have to get you to the hospital.”  
  
    “I’m fine,” Kurapika says. He grabs a paper towel from the bar and holds it to the wound. “What would you like this morning?”  
  
    “Are you kidding me? What the fuck was that? Are you okay? Should I call the cops?” Leorio continues, his voice rising in shock. “Oh my god. I can’t believe you just—fought that guy like that. Why did you—”  
  
    “He was going for your wallet, and he had a knife. You didn’t notice?”  
  
    Leorio blinks in surprise. “Uh.”  
  
    “You should be more careful,” Kurapika continues in a stern voice, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “New York is very dangerous, you know. What would you like today? Espresso?”  
  
    He fixes Leorio with a stubborn glare, just like he did the first time.

  
    “Don’t be an idiot. You can’t work with that arm. The hospital is right there. Can I go with you?”  
  
    “I’m _fine_ ,” Kurapika insists. “I’m not going to the hospital. It’s just a scratch.”  
  
    “Why not? You’re literally bleeding onto the coffee filters. You’re gonna get fired. This is a health code violation for sure. Plus it’s gross.”  
  
    “I’ll take it up with my supervisor myself,” Kurapika continues, his mouth going thin. “Espresso? Macchiato?”  
  
    “Look,” Leorio says, “I, uh. I get it if you don’t like hospitals, but you need someone to look at that cut. If that guy really was trying to mug me, I owe you one. I’m a...doctor,” he says, blushing through the lie but forging onwards, “so...why don’t you come to my apartment and I’ll fix it up? I live pretty close.”  
  
    They stare at each other wordlessly for a minute. A muscle is twitching in Kurapika’s jaw, and there are dark shadows underneath his eyes. A drop of blood rolls down his arm and stains his apron.  
  
    “Hmm. You’re rather young to be a doctor,” Kurapika says, the corner of his mouth quirking up, “aren’t you?”  
  
    “Am I?” Leorio says, returning Kurapika’s grin. “Well, what I meant to say is that I’m _going_ to be a doctor. I guess I misspoke.”  
  
    “Ah. Maybe I wasn’t listening carefully.”  
  
    “Which...reminds me,” Leorio continues, his pulse increasing, “did you enjoy the flute concert last night?”

    There’s a pause. Outside, the junkie picks himself up from the curb and limps down the street, shooting a murderous scowl through the window at the two of them.

    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kurapika replies a beat too late. His eyes flicker. “I didn’t go to a concert.”  
  
    “Really? You were up in the balcony. I was working as an usher and you walked right by me. Guess you didn’t see me.”  
  
    “Hmm. No. I was working last night. You must be mistaken.”  
  
    “Working here? At 9 pm?”  
  
    “I had the last shift,” Kurapika says fiercely, and he looks so defensive and unhappy that Leorio drops the subject.  
  
    “Okay. Guess it was someone else.”  
  
    “I guess so.”  
  
    The door jingles again, and they both spin around in alarm. A woman pushing a toddler in a stroller is peering inside.  
  
    “Um—sorry? Can I order a caramel frappucino for here?”  
  
    “We’re closed,” Kurapika says coldly. The woman glances up at the OPEN sign before leaving, shaking her head and muttering under her breath about rude New Yorkers. Leorio watches the whole exchange in bemused silence.  
  
    “Well, if you’re not gonna work, are you sure you don’t want to come with me and I’ll slap a bandage on that thing? Or do you have other guys to suplex?  
  
    “To what?” Kurapika says, his face going blank.  
  
    “Oh, uh....” Leorio clears his throat. Zepile liked to watch wrestling, and that was a term that got yelled a lot during matches. “Um. It’s just a...never mind.”  
  
    “Well...I suppose I could...accompany you,” Kurapika says slowly, “if it’s quick.” He takes off his apron and wads it up, storing it underneath the counter.  
  
    “It’ll be quick. Do you mind walking? Probably faster than the train this time of day.”  
  
    “Walking is fine.”  
  
    Kurapika locks the cafe, and they set off towards Chinatown. As they walk, his eyes travel over Leorio, lingering on the wine stained tuxedo shirt and rumpled pants, and his mouth twists into a half-smile.  
  
    “Looks like you had a rough morning yourself.”  
  
    “Hah. Yeah.”  
  
    “It happens to the best of us, I suppose.”  
  
    “Speak for yourself. I think I look great,” Leorio jokes, displaying his ripped blazer sleeve with a flourish. Kurapika laughs unexpectedly at that, covering his mouth with a hand, and Leorio feels himself flush.  
  
    It’s about a twenty minute walk through the East Village to get to Leorio’s place. As they walk, they make small talk about the familiar landmarks: Katz’s Deli, Rockwood Music Hall, the dozens of 99 cent pizza joints. They start to loosen up. Kurapika chuckles when Leorio trips over a curb, and Leorio makes fun of Kurapika for not knowing the iconic scene in When Harry Met Sally that was filmed in Katz’s.  
  
    “Really? The whole ‘I’ll have what she’s having’ thing?” Leorio asks in disbelief as they pass Tompkins Square Park. “Oh man! It’s a great scene. They’re eating these big messy Reubens, and Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm and an old lady turns around and—uh. Not ringing any bells?”  
  
    Kurapika shakes his head. “I haven’t seen many movies.”  
  
    “Are you one of those people who’s all proud of the fact that they’ve never watched tv?” Leorio groans, rolling his eyes.  
  
    “It’s not like that,” Kurapika says lightly, shading his eyes from the morning sun. “I just don’t know much about pop culture.”  
  
    When they reach the apartment, Leorio pauses and turns to Kurapika, keys clutched in his hand.  
  
    “Okay. So my roommate is, uh. Doing this pretty intense art project at the moment, so...if things are...weird, just know that it’s all him. Not me.”  
  
    “Oh. That’s all right.”  
  
    “I mean really weird,” Leorio warns, unlocking the front door. They traipse up the dark stairwell, Kurapika’s dress shoes clacking against the wooden steps.  
  
    “Hey, Zep?” Leorio calls into the apartment when he opens the door, but it seems like he’s got the place to himself. “Watch where you step,” he cautions Kurapika as they pick their way into the living room. “Anyways, uh. Here it is.”  
  
    Leorio watches Kurapika’s eyes widen as he takes in the mess.  
  
    “You weren’t kidding. What on earth is he doing with all of this?” Kurapika gingerly prods at a pile of doll heads. “You said this is an art project?”  
  
    “Well, his main work is, you know, normal art. He does these amazing replications. But this is his passion project,” Leorio calls from the bathroom as he fetches the first aid kid. “Here, I’ll show you the other stuff he’s doing. It’s much less weird.”  
  
    Kurapika follows Leorio into Zepile’s studio, where Leorio pulls the sheet off of Zepile’s nearly-finished Mona Lisa replication. Kurapika whistles in appreciation.  
  
    “Ah, he’s very good.”  
  
    “Yeah,” Leorio agrees, “he does these big commissions of knockoffs to pay the bills, but he gets tired of it, I think, and has the urge to rip the heads off of a million dolls and throw paint around and everything.”  
  
    Kurapika nods thoughtfully. “I see. It’s understandable. It seems constricting to only work as an imitator.”  
  
    “Mm. I guess. Here, let’s go in my room and I’ll fix that up,” Leorio says, pointing at Kurapika’s arm. The wound is bleeding through the paper towel and staining the sleeve of Kurapika’s white tunic.  
  
    “All right.”  
  
    Kurapika follows Leorio into his bedroom and perches on the edge of his bed, holding his injured arm to his chest. Leorio feels a wave of embarrassment over the state of the room as Kurapika gazes around curiously. He wishes that he had cleaned it sometime in the past month.  
  
    The rest of the apartment is subject to Zepile’s artistic whims, but his own room shouldn’t look this bad. His bed is unmade, and the navy blue comforter is probably overdue for a wash. His dusty medical textbooks are scattered across his desk and bookshelves, and there are more than a few dirty mugs of coffee sitting around. On top of that, he’s never had a great eye for decorating. The postcards he taped up from Pietro’s trip to Vietnam last year look tacky. Pietro’s hospital bills are piled on the desk, and there are unpaid debt notices taped to the mirror and bedpost. It smells kind of musty, too, thanks to a large pile of dirty towels and clothes in the corner. He can’t remember the last time he did laundry.  
  
    “Sorry it’s such a pit,” Leorio mutters, gesturing around. “I don’t usually have company.”  
  
    “Oh. Don’t worry. I don’t mind,” Kurapika says politely, leaning over to inspect one of the postcards. “Is that Hanoi?”  
  
    “Oh. Uh. I think so. My buddy went there last year.”  
  
    “A lovely city.”  
  
    “Yeah, it looks cool.” Leorio opens the first aid kid and produces a bottle of antiseptic and a roll of bandages. “Here, lemme take a look at that.”  
  
    Kurapika removes the bloodied paper towel and extends his arm, and Leorio takes a seat next to him on the bed. He’s so close that he can hear Kurapika’s quiet breathing.  
  
    “Any deeper and you would need stitches,” Leorio says, running his finger alongside the gash. “You’re lucky. Well, as lucky as you could be given the circumstances. Heh.”    
  
    At his touch, Kurapika shivers and sits up straighter. It makes Leorio’s mouth go dry.  
  
    “But. Um. We can just clean this up and you’ll be good to go. You’ve had a tetanus shot sometime in the last three years, right?”  
  
    Kurapika looks at the ceiling, frowning. “A tetanus shot?”  
  
    “You definitely had one. You’re, what, 19? 20? It’s legally required for most colleges. You’re probably fine.”  
  
    “Oh. Then I guess I did.”  
  
    Kurapika falls silent, wincing a little when Leorio applies the antiseptic over the wound.  
  
    “Sorry,” Leorio murmurs, “I know it stings.”  
  
    Traffic hums steadily outside. A light rain begins to fall, waking up the sparrows in the trees and making them chirp and rustle around in the leaves. A low-flying jet thrums overhead.  
  
    As he works, Leorio’s phone rings three times, but he ignores it. He takes his time wrapping the bandage around his thin forearm, making sure it’s secure but not too tight. When he’s finished, he pats Kurapika on the hand.  
  
    “There. Good as new.”  
  
    Kurapika turns his arm over to inspect the bandage. “Thank you. This looks very professional.” He gives Leorio a hesitant smile. “I appreciate it.”  
  
    “Don’t mention it,” Leorio says, scratching the back of his neck. “Super easy. Um...”  
  
    He glances at his phone; the missed calls are all from Pietro’s hospital. _Shit_ .  
  
    “Do you have anything to do right now?” Kurapika asks, rising from the bed and tucking his hair behind his ears. “Can I take you to breakfast?”  
  
    “Agh. I would really like that, but I have to head over to the hospital.”  
  
    “Oh. Do you have to work?”  
  
    “No, no,” Leorio says, shaking his head, “I, um. I just have to visit my friend. He’s sick.”  
  
    “Oh. I’m sorry.”  
  
    “It’s okay!” Leorio says quickly. “But, hey. I would really love to another time. Do you wanna exchange numbers?”  
  
    Kurapika throws him an alarmed look. “For our phones?”  
  
    “Uh—yes?”  
  
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Kurapika says softly, almost to himself. “Although,” he pauses, tugging at a lock of hair, “well. I guess—I guess it would be all right.”  
  
    “Um. I’m not trying to—I just, I mean.” Leorio flails desperately, wondering if he came on too strong. “It would be cool to—hang. Sometime. Um.”  
  
    “What’s your cell number?” Kurapika asks, taking out his phone. “I’ll, er, save yours and send you mine.”  
  
    _Well, geez._

    Leorio certainly knows that tactic. Still, though, he tells Kurapika his number. Just in case.  
  
    “Thank you, Leorio,” Kurapika says, pocketing his phone and smiling again. “I’m glad we ran into each other this morning.”  
  
    “Me too! I mean—I’m sorry about that guy. And your arm. And everything.”  
  
    “Oh, it happens,” Kurapika says offhandedly. “What can you do?”  
  
    Leorio has several answers to that (don’t pick fights with crazy people, stay away from strangers with knives, get regular tetanus shots), but he mirrors Kurapika’s breezy shrug.

   “You heading back to Daily Beans?” Leorio asks as they leave the apartment. “I’m walking that way.”  
  
    “No, I have some work to do,” Kurapika says, gesturing vaguely in the opposite direction. They pause at an intersection, and he looks up at Leorio and offers a handshake. “I’ll be going this way now. Keep an eye out for pickpockets, will you?”  
  
    Leorio accepts the handshake, marveling at how small Kurapika’s hand feels in his own large mitt. When the handshake is broken, Kurapika leans into the street and hails a passing cab.  
  
    “Right. And same for you. Don’t pick fights when there isn’t a doctor around to patch you up, all right?” He gives Kurapika a playful wink, but Kurapika nods seriously before stepping into the cab.  
  
    “Yes. I won’t. Thank you, Leorio. Take care.”  
  
    He shuts the door. Leorio follows the cab with his eyes until it’s lost in the sea of cars on First Avenue, feeling a little shell-shocked.

* * *

    It’s a quiet day in the ICU today with no car crashes or gunfights to liven things up, and Pietro is bored and starved for gossip. He’s an appreciative audience for Leorio’s story, gasping and swearing in all of the right places.  
  
    “Whoa. You think it was karate or something?” he asks, struggling to adjust his oxygen mask. “That’s insane. How big is he, anyways?”  
  
    “That’s the thing!” Leorio says, waving his hands for emphasis. “He’s really small. Like, he comes up to my chest. Tiny. But he beat the shit out of this guy, I’m telling you. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even on the subway. It was scary.”  
  
    Pietro nods. “Yeah. Damn. So you took him back and played Doctor with him? You little perv,” he teases, aiming a feeble kick at Leorio’s midsection from the bed.  
  
    “Oh, shut up. I just put a bandage on it and cleaned it up. It woulda gotten infected.”  
  
    “Why didn’t you just take him to the ER? It’s right here.”  
  
    Leorio shrugs, scratching his head.  
  
    “Um. I got the feeling that he really didn’t want to be involved with the hospital. Some people are just like that.”  
  
    “Oh. Maybe his insurance ran out,” Pietro says darkly. “Man, it’ll be shitty when that happens for me.” He shudders. “I don’t even wanna know how bad it is by now. God, can you imagine?”  
  
    “Yeah,” Leorio agrees, not meeting his eyes, “that would...be bad. Hey, aren’t the Mets on?” He searches for the remote control in Pietro’s mess of blankets and turns on the staticky overhead television. The room fills with the sound of a cheering crowd. “Let’s watch the game, yeah?”


	2. manhattan in the rain

     It rains and rains and rains. Pietro only gets worse. His tumor-riddled lungs fill with fluid as the city streets flood with rainwater. The surgeons shake their heads grimly when they look at the scans and x-rays. All of the nurses grow kinder and gentler, fulfilling all of Pietro’s requests for higher and higher doses of painkillers. Pietro refuses food, and asks Leorio to bring in a set of his rosary beads he’s kept since his days in Catholic school. It’s a bad sign.  
  
    For the first time since the whole ordeal started, Leorio starts to doubt that Pietro will actually get better. The thought is so unbearable when it crosses his mind that he has to stop whatever he’s doing and physically hold on to something: a desk, a subway pole, the rim of a coffee mug.  
  
    He stops sleeping, or to be more accurate, he stops sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, always jolting awake at the slightest noises and yet somehow still enduring long complicated nightmares about getting lost in parking garages, missing the train, and forgetting to pay Pietro’s hospital bills. He wakes up tangled in his blankets, sweaty and agitated.  
  
    Between the stress and his dire financial straits, Leorio is barely eating. His clothes start to hang loosely on his lanky frame. Zepile notices and begins surreptitiously leaving him leftovers in the fridge. He still hasn’t scraped together the March rent, and although Zepile doesn’t mention it, he feels a constant low boil of guilt in his stomach over it.  
  
    He goes on Craigslist and applies for twenty different odd jobs: dog walker, babysitter, more catering gigs, language tutors, errand boy. Hopefully something will turn up soon. He’s been afraid to commit to anything regular because of the hospital visits, but if he doesn’t find some cash soon, he’ll have to take drastic measures. He’s already infringing on Zepile’s generosity as it is.  
  
    And yet—  
  
    In spite of all of this shit piling up, in spite of living through the worst time of his life, Leorio finds himself strangely cheerful.  
  
    Spring in New York! Leorio understands, for the first time, why people write so many songs about it. The whole city is pulsing with a frenetic energy; everything is suffused with rampant hormones and romance and danger and sex and death and new life. It’s exploding out of every crack in the sidewalk. The subway smells perpetually of wet dog. Sudden showers drench the commuters in their designer suits on their way home from Wall Street. The trees burst with fresh green buds. Corner markets overflow with bouquets of rainbow flowers. There are spates of random violence all over the city: car crashes, screaming fights, glittering piles of smashed glass left on the concrete. After a long, cold, depressing winter, everything feels volatile and electric and brand-new.  
  
    And what better time to embark on a wild infatuation with a mysterious stranger? Because that’s what’s happening to Leorio, and it’s got him by the balls.  
  
    Kurapika, Kurapika, Kurapika!  
  
    He’s all Leorio can think about lying in bed at night, walking through the park in the afternoon, waiting in line at the library to check out more medical textbooks, smoking a bummed cigarette on the fire escape before bed. He repeats the syllables to himself wonderingly, savoring the consonants as they roll off of his tongue.  
  
    He replays their interactions in his head again and again, mulling over the odd cadence of Kurapika’s speech, the sharp intelligence in his dark eyes, the slim line of his lithe body. He can’t stop thinking about the way Kurapika shivered when he touched his arm.  
  
    What’s more, Kurapika proves absolutely untraceable on the internet. As far as Leorio can deduce, Kurapika has no Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest account, no YouTube channels, and no criminal background. It’s like he doesn’t even exist. Leorio has never seen anything like it.  
  
    To make sure he’s not just bad at looking for stuff, he does a trial search for Pietro, and immediately ten pages pop up; high school yearbook photos (Pietro grinning dorkily through a truly awful mouthful of braces), clippings from their local Hoboken newspaper about their soccer team’s tournament in 7th grade, a brief mention of him on the Mount Sinai website for winning Patient of The Month in January, and a long heap of connections to his estranged father. Leorio closes all of the tabs and leans back in his desk chair, stumped.  
  
    It’s not a surprise, but he’s still disappointed when Kurapika doesn’t call him or text him. He figures he came on too strong after bandaging him up. Kurapika probably just offered to take him to breakfast because he felt guilty for having him take care of his arm.  
  
    Although he’s too broke for espressos at the moment, he continues to peek inside of Daily Beans every time he’s on his way in and out of the hospital. He tries to put Kurapika out of his mind, but it’s impossible. 

As March blusters on, life settles into an uneasy schedule. Zepile continues to fill the apartment with dolls and fabric and empty cans of beans and broken tape recorders. Leorio snags a few Craigslist jobs and spends his days scuttling back and forth in the city. He walks people’s designer poodles on the Upper East Side, waters an old lady‘s houseplants in Jersey City, and teaches Spanish to a pair of 5-year-old twin girls in Red Hook. When he’s not working or waiting for the trains, he races back to the hospital to check on Pietro. Doctor Carroll sets a tentative date for Pietro’s next tumor debulking surgery; a major victory in Leorio’s eyes. Pietro says nothing about it when he hears the news, looking away and fidgeting with his rosary beads, but Leorio is determined and excited.  
  
    All in all, things are looking up. He finally gets the rent money together, and manages to make enough minimum payments on his credit cards and loans that the debt collectors stop calling for a week. He even stops thinking about Kurapika for a day or two.  
  
    _Just a crush,_ he tells himself with a rueful smile, _just one of those weird big-city missed connection things_ . It’s happened before. He flirts with Pietro’s cute nurses with renewed vigor.  
  
    On the first warm Friday night of April, Zepile finishes the Mona Lisa knockoff and decides to throw a big party to celebrate. He invites all of their usual pals over: Wing, Morel, Senritsu, as well as a contingent of weirder people from the fringes of his artistic life. Leorio helps Zepile make a giant batch of sangria and a platter of fried ravioli. The deep frier splatters molten grease all over the kitchen. Guests trickle in, bringing nice bottles of wine (from the Manhattan types) and jars of homemade jam and sauerkraut (from the Brooklyn friends). Leorio eyes the jars suspiciously, thinking about botulism and disease, but Zepile opens everything to enthusiastically sample heaping spoonfuls.  
  
    “Wow! These are incredible! So pungent. You gotta try one,” Zepile cries, brandishing a soggy carrot at Leorio.  
  
    “I”m good,” Leorio insists, ducking through the crowded kitchen to check on the smoking ravioli. “Zep, these were done ten minutes ago. You’re gonna burn the building down.”  
  
    “Ah! Shit! Turn it off, will ya?”  
  
    They drag out Zepile’s old turntable and put on a Stevie Wonder record, and before long people are drunk enough to start a dance party in the cluttered living room. Zepile proudly shows off the Mona Lisa to oohs and ahhs. Leorio alternates between cooking more ravioli, eating the ravioli, and chatting with Wing and Morel. Over the course of two hours he drinks enough sangria to grow silly and red-faced.  
  
    It’s warm enough outside that they’ve left the windows and doors wide open. As Zepile puts on a Prince record and the party gets wilder, Leorio decides to take a break to grab some air and check his messages. Refilling his plastic cup of sangria, he snatches up his phone from the crowded kitchen and clambers out onto the iron framework of the fire escape.

  
    There’s a missed call from an unfamiliar number blinking on his phone, and a voicemail. His heart sinks; probably a debt collector. He sets his phone to speakerphone, not wanting to hear the scolding voice so close to his ears while he’s in such a fine mood.  
  
    “You have ONE new voicemail notification,” the robot lady informs him. He flinches in trepidation and presses play.  
  
    “Leorio, it’s Kurapika.” A long pause. “I apologize for the delay in getting touch with you. Call me back, if you’d like.” The message beeps to an end.  
  
    _Kurapika...!_ _  
_  
    Nerves sparking with adrenaline, Leorio instantly rewinds the voicemail and plays it again, cranking up the volume and pressing the phone to his ear this time. It’s really him. The same serious voice, the slight lilt, the overly formal phrasing.  
  
    Hands shaking, Leorio hits the redial button at once. The muffled music from inside pulses through the walls, and he hears snatches of laughter and conversation as the phone rings ten, eleven, twelve times. He’s about to give up when Kurapika finally answers.  
  
    “Yes?”  
  
    “...Kurapika? Is that you?”  
  
    “Yes.”  
  
    “Hey! This is Leorio!”  
  
    “I know,” Kurapika says, sounding irrationally annoyed.  
  
    Leorio pauses, scratching his nose. “Oh. Well. I just listened to your voicemail. Sorry I didn’t catch you earlier. My roommate—Zepile, the guy with the crazy artwork—he’s, uh, he’s throwing a big party.”  
  
    “Oh,” Kurapika says, his voice growing warmer, “did he finish the Mona Lisa?”  
  
    “Yeah! You remembered.”  
  
    “Of course. It was an excellent reproduction, as I recall.”  
  
    “Yeah,” Leorio agrees fervently, “it’s. Um.” He clears his throat, suddenly aware of how the sangria is going to his head. The neon street signs of Chinatown swim across his vision, and he blinks hard, trying to get a grip. “Hey, how have you been? It’s been a few weeks. How are you doin’?”  
  
    “I’m well, thank you.”  
  
    Pause, pause, pause. Leorio opens and closes his mouth several times, waiting for Kurapika to elaborate, but there’s nothing but dead air on the line.  
  
    “Good! Yeah. That’s good. Working a lot?”  
  
    “Yes, I’ve been busy.”

  
    Zepile and Wing are yelling at Leorio to rejoin the party from inside, each clutching glasses of champagne. Leorio waves them away, making a shushing motion and pointing to his phone.  
  
    “Good. Um. So what’s up, Kurapika? It’s nice to hear from you again! I kinda thought I scared you off.”  
  
    “Well, I was wondering if you’d still like to. Um. Hang out sometime, as you put it?”  
  
    “Yes! Definitely! I’d love to!” Leorio says immediately, throwing caution to the wind. “When?”  
  
    “How’s Sunday?” Kurapika replies. “I’m free all day.”  
  
    “Wow! Yeah. Sunday. That’s great! Whaddya wanna do? There’s some good dive bars by my place where we could watch the Yankees, if you want.”  
  
    Kurapika makes a noncommittal noise. “Oh...”  
  
    “Or,” Leorio backtracks, “or, we could, uh...”  
  
    He stares around the apartment frantically, looking for inspiration. His eyes alight on one of Zepile’s weird artsy friends: she has bright turquoise hair and about 900 piercings, and she’s carrying a tote bag from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    “How about the Met?” Leorio continues brightly.  
  
    “Oh! The opera?”  
  
    “Oh god, no. The art museum. I mean. Unless you like the opera—”  
  
    “No, no, the museum would be good,” Kurapika chuckles, and Leorio clenches his fist in victory.  
  
    “Awesome! Wanna meet there at 2:30 on Sunday?”  
  
    “It’s a plan. See you then.”  
  
    Kurapika hangs up without another word, and Leorio leaps to his feet and climbs back inside, whooping  
  
    “I have a date,” he shouts at Zepile over the music.  
  
    “Huh?”  
  
    “I have a date!”  
  
    “You have a joint? Sweet, dude, let’s smoke it!” Morel calls, grinning and giving him a thumbs up. Leorio gives up and rejoins the party, downing his sangria in one gulp. 

* * *

    Saturday is a long, fidgety, uncomfortable day. Leorio and Zepile drink glasses of Alka Seltzer, groaning, and fight through their hangovers to clean up the dirty dishes and tracked-in mud left by their party guests. By sunset, the apartment is habitable again. Leorio trudges through the drizzle to see Pietro, who ends up being too groggy and sleepy to talk much. Leorio drinks a cup of shitty hospital coffee and waits around for a while to see if Pietro will perk up, but eventually the nurses kick him out so they can do their rounds without Leorio hovering around.  
  
    While he’s walking back to the apartment and daydreaming about his upcoming day with Kurapika, Leorio gets hit with a burst of inspiration. He comes to a dead stop on the sidewalk, snapping his fingers.  
  
    “Ging!”  
  
    One of Leorio’s favorite parts of medical school last year had been the mandatory volunteer hours. He signed up for the city’s Big Brother program, and was assigned to a delightful 10-year-old kid named Gon. Gon lived in Queens with his adoptive mother, Mito, but they were originally from Hawaii, and Gon pined for the oceans and forests of his childhood home.  
  
    Once a month, Leorio would get together with Gon and do something fun: movies, pizza, walking around the park, catching bugs, that sort of thing. Gon was warm and trusting towards Leorio right from the start, talking to him eagerly about his friends at school, his teachers, Mito, his favorite animals, all sorts of things. As their friendship progressed, certain details of Gon’s family life emerged.  
  
    At first Leorio had assumed that Gon’s biological dad was simply out of the picture, as was often the case in these situations. To Leorio’s surprise, it turned out that Ging was not only alive and well but also living in New York City, where he worked as the head curator for the Egyptian wings of several prominent museum; the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan among them. Mito, Ging’s cousin, had won legal custody of Gon when Ging decided that his archeological expeditions to the Egyptian pyramids to unearth mummies took precedence over the cumbersome business of raising a baby.  
  
    Although Leorio had never met Ging, he hated him from the first time Gon mentioned him. Leorio didn’t usually get sappy about kids, but Gon was an unusually bright child; loving and affectionate and creative, truly fun to be around. Ging was a piece of shit for not seeing it.  
  
    That being said, Ging might have some useful connections for Leorio at the museum tomorrow. With a spring in his step, Leorio makes a mental note to call Gon as soon as he gets home.

Leorio spends two hours deciding what to wear to the museum tomorrow before collapsing facedown in an overwrought heap on the mattress. He’s never been more nervous or excited for a date before. If that was even what that was, of course. He’s getting ahead of himself again.

 _Relax, you loser,_ he thinks, burying his head underneath a pillow and groaning. 

    The only good thing about the hangover is that he’s wiped out. He falls asleep quickly, and for the first time in a long time, he dreams about nothing at all.

* * *

    Finally, finally, Sunday afternoon rolls around.  
  
    The train is delayed, because of course it is. They’ve been stuck in a tunnel for ten minutes, and Leorio can’t understand the conductor’s garbled apology over the speakers. He tries to text Kurapika to say that he’s running late, but there’s no service. He heaves a gusty sigh and drums his fingers on his thighs impatiently. A baby starts to cry. Somebody smells like they stepped in dog shit. A homeless man holds out his hat and begs for money, and most of the passengers pointedly ignore him, buried in their phones and adjusting their headphones. Leorio digs in his pockets, but he used up all of his change doing laundry yesterday. Finally the train lurches back to life, and five minutes later, he’s elbowing his way out of the crowded platform and taking the stairs in two and threes until he bursts onto the street.  
  
    It’s another perfect spring day. There’s a guy selling roasted chestnuts on the sidewalk, and the smoky aroma makes Leorio’s mouth water. The sunshine is intense, but the air is still tempered with a hint of coolness. The trees are just starting to leaf out in Central Park. Sometime within the last few days, the cherry trees have all exploded into riotous pink blossoms.  
  
    Leorio scans the crowds of tourists in front of the museum as he approaches. It takes him a minute to spot a familiar yellow head amongst the hordes of selfie sticks and hot dog vendors. Kurapika is perched on the top of the marble stairs, chewing on a thumbnail and engrossed in a book. His golden hair glints in the sunlight. When a strand blows across his face, he tucks it absentmindedly behind a delicate ear.  
  
    Leorio’s pulse quickens.  
  
    “Yo,” he calls when he’s halfway up the stairs, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. “Sorry I’m late. Train was fucked. As always, heh. Sorry to keep you waiting.”  
  
    “There are children around, Leorio,” Kurapika replies, placing a bookmark in his paperback and getting to his feet. “Don’t be crass.”  
  
    “Oh. Shit. Sorry,” Leorio mutters. “I mean. Darn. Um...”  
  
    He’s floundering already. Kurapika ignores him and drifts towards the doors. Leorio somehow feels both dumpy and overdressed in his carefully selected jeans and blazer; Kurapika’s white linen tunic looks effortlessly cool and breezy.  
  
    “Whatcha reading? I need a new subway book,” Leorio attempts, trailing behind Kurapika as they walk into the main lobby. After the bright sunshine outside, it takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness of the cavernous entrance hall.  
  
    They queue up behind the ticket counter. Kurapika pulls the book out of his crossbody bag to show Leorio; it’s a collection of Shakespeare sonnets. Part of the binding is ripped, and the cover is so faded that Leorio can hardly make out the illustration.  
  
    “Read it a few times, huh? You’re a bigger nerd than I thought.”  
  
    Kurapika does not laugh.  
  
    “It was my mother’s favorite book.” He puts the book back in his bag and stares fixedly at the ticket prices.  
  
    Leorio notes the past tense and berates himself inwardly. Two strikes already, and they haven’t even looked at a painting yet. _Good going, idiot. Make him think about his dead mom._ He wonders what happened to her.  
  
    “So. Which one’s your favorite?”  
  
    “What?” Kurapika asks distantly, chewing on a thumbnail.  
  
    “Which one do you like the best? Of the poems?” Leorio presses, leaning closer to make himself heard over the buzz of conversation around them.  
  
    “Oh,” Kurapika replies after a beat of silence. “Well. I guess...”  
  
    The line meanders towards the ticket counters. Kurapika goes quiet for so long that Leorio thinks that he must have lost his train of thought. Leorio catches a trace of a pleasant smell in the air, and he sneaks a long sniff when Kurapika yawns and closes his eyes. Lavender? Mint? Lemon? It’s something herbal and sweet, but he can’t quite put a finger on it.  
  
    “Is that cologne?” Leorio asks, just as Kurapika suddenly says “Sonnet 55, I think.”  
  
    They both laugh nervously. Before they have a chance to continue talking, it’s their turn at the ticket counter. Kurapika takes out his wallet, and Leorio gives him a meaningful shake of his head.  
  
    “Two adults? That’ll be twenty-four ninety,” croaks the ancient red-jacketed volunteer working the booth. “Cash or credit?”  
  
    “Actually,” Leorio murmurs, leaning forward and turning on his best Doctor Smile, “I’m, uh, a friend of Ging Freecs. He mentioned that I might be able to get, uh...”  
  
    The volunteer frowns. “Pardon?”  
  
    Kurapika has drifted away to examine a Roman bust over by the windows. Leorio clears his throat and tries again, feeling a flush of embarrassment spreading across his cheeks. People are starting to grumble behind him.  
  
    “I believe Ging Freecs placed me and a guest on the VIP list for today.  The chief Egyptologist? Who curates all the mummies? He did the King Tut exhibit with the—look,” he says, exasperated, pointing down at a typed list taped to the booth, “it says it right there. Paladiknight. For two.”  
  
    The volunteer squints at the list, tracing each name with a trembling finger. “Patalino, you say?”  
  
    “Come on, man,” someone complains from the farther back in the line. “Hurry it up.”  
  
    “Just—just give me a minute,” Leorio hisses. “Look, it’s right there!”  
  
    “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not finding the name here. Are you sure it was placed on the list?”  
  
    “Is there a problem?” Kurapika asks, reappearing behind Leorio. He produces a crisp $50 bill from his wallet and slides it across the counter. The volunteer blinks owlishly down at it for a moment before handing back two tickets and Kurapika’s change. Kurapika picks up the tickets but promptly drops the remaining bills and coins into a donation box off to the side.  
  
    “Wait, no, you don’t need to—” Leorio protests. Kurapika makes a dismissive gesture and walks past the booth.  
  
    “We’re holding up the entire line. Let’s start with the Egypt wing, do you think?”  
  
    Kurapika strides forward and vanishes into the shadows of the Neolithic Era exhibit. Leorio hurries to catch up with him, spluttering.  
  
    “You really didn’t have to do that! My name was right there, I was gonna get us both in for free.”  
  
    “It’s fine,” Kurapika says briskly, bending over to read the placard in front of some ancient lump of stone. “I got paid today.”  
  
    “Yeah, but...”  
  
    “It’s fine. Do you know much about prehistoric Sumerian art?”  
  
    Leorio gets the hint to drop the subject. He squats down to look at the lump.  
  
    “Er...”  
  
    “This was a fertility sculpture, apparently,” Kurapika murmurs. “See, it has, uh...” He points to a protruding pair of bumps on one side of the stone. “It’s rather. Uh. Well-endowed.”  
  
    “You’re right. Some things never change, I guess.” He snickers. “Man, they really had a type back then.” He gestures towards the rest of the sculptures in the case.  
  
    “Not really my style,” Kurapika comments, smiling faintly.  
  
    Leorio’s ears go hot. He walks away to feign interest in a map of Mesopotamia as Kurapika continues to read every word of every placard.  
  
    “If you read everything that carefully we’re never gonna make it out of ancient Egypt, you know,” he calls back to Kurapika. “I promise the rest of the stuff is way more interesting.”  
  
    “This is interesting to me,” Kurapika answers placidly. “I like to know what I’m looking at.”  
  
    “Well, sure, but don’t you wanna go look at the big Renoirs and Chagalls and the fun stuff? The museum closes at 5 and it’s already almost 3. We’ll run out of time.”  
  
    Kurapika straightens up and fixes Leorio with his unsettling gaze. “Are you bored?”  
  
    Maybe it’s the dim lighting, but Kurapika’s eyes look weird; instead of their regular dark brown, they’re a glowing maroon.  
  
    “No!” Leorio says hurriedly, “no, not at all, I just—” he breaks off, peering into Kurapika’s eyes.  “Are you wearing contacts or something?”  
  
    Kurapika immediately closes his eyes and touches a hand to his eyelids.  
  
    “Shit,” he mutters, and before Leorio can ask what’s wrong, he disappears into a nearby bathroom.  
  
    _Well, geez,_ Leorio thinks, rubbing the back of his neck. _Sensitive_ .  
  
    As he waits for Kurapika to return, his phone buzzes with a text from Pietro.  
  
    From: Pietro  
_How’s it going. Lover boy make any moves yet?_ _  
_ _  
_ From: Leorio  
_Shut up jerk. we’re just hanging out nothing’s happening_ _  
_ _  
_ From: Pietro  
_Yah right. I saw u checking urself out in the mirror. Remember to use protection_ _  
_  
    From: Leorio  
_actually I think he’s already mad at me so that’s not gonna happen. Everything ok?_ _  
_  
    From: Pietro  
_yah they want you to come in and do the wound care thing for my poop bag tomorrow can you come? sorry :(_ _  
_  
    From: Leorio  
_Yeah just tell me when and don’t eat anything gross before lol_ _  
_  
    “Let’s go to the medieval wing,” Kurapika says at his shoulder. Leorio scrambles to turn off his phone before Kurapika sees anything.  
  
    “Hey! You okay?”  
  
    “Yes. I forgot to put in my contacts today and it makes my eyes very strained if I don’t wear them.”  
  
    It’s an obvious lie, and Kurapika doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to conceal it. Leorio watches him for another moment before shrugging and turning away to walk towards the King Tut room.  
  
    The golden sarcophagus glimmers in the shadows. Leorio fumbles for another topic of conversation.  
  
    “So, are you, ah...are you in school right now?”  
  
    “No,” Kurapika says without elaborating, pulling out his cell phone to snap a picture of a jade sculpture of Anubis.  
  
    “Me neither,” Leorio replies doggedly, determined to keep the conversation moving, “well, I should be, but. I’m not. Do you wanna be?”  
  
    “It’s...not a possibility at the moment.”  
     
    “Why not?”  
  
    Kurapika pauses in front of a framed papyrus text, tracing the words with a delicate index finger. Leorio has already noticed that Kurapika silently mouths words to himself when he reads something, and he’s doing it again now.  
  
    It occurs to him that English might not be Kurapika’s first language. Leorio is brimming with curiosity, but it might be a touchy subject. He keeps his mouth closed, watching the minute movements of Kurapika’s lips.  
  
    “I’m too busy with work,” Kurapika replies a beat later, not meeting his eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to manage any coursework.”  
  
    “Really? How much do you work at the coffeeshop?”  
  
    “I...” Kurapika says, narrowing his eyes, “it’s...full time. Fifty hours a week.”  
  
    _Another lie,_ Leorio thinks. It’s almost like he’s waiting for Leorio to call him on it. What’s going on here?  
  
    They leave the Egypt wing and walk into the medieval art room. Most of the work here is gold-leaf paintings of Christ as an infant with the Virgin Mary, and while some of them are beautiful, others look so bizarre and alien that Leorio giggles under his breath.  
  
    “Geez. Had that guy ever seen a baby before?” Leorio mutters, nudging Kurapika and pointing at a particularly weird depiction. “Jesus looks like Danny Devito.”  
  
    Kurapika snorts with laughter and claps a hand to his mouth.  
  
    “That’s horrible! These are ancient masterpieces. You’re being sacrilegious.”  
  
    “Why are you laughing, then?” Leorio teases, elbowing him. “Don’t act like you don’t agree.”  
  
    Kurapika flushes a lovely shade of pink, hiding a grin behind his hand. Suddenly the collar of Leorio’s shirt feels too tight. He clears his throat and undoes his top button.  
  
    “It’s funny how it’s just all Jesus paintings. Didn’t they ever want to paint other stuff?”  
  
    “Many artists were prohibited from producing anything besides Pietistic paintings until the early Renaissance period,” Kurapika says immediately. “Most of it was limited to the iconographic traditions of the primitive Christian church, mixed with the influence of Northern European barbarian cultures.”  
  
    “Whoa. Besides what now?”  
  
    “Pietistic. Saints, the Christ figure, and so on.”  
  
    “Oh. Yeah. That makes sense. Did you just read that somewhere?”  
  
    “No,” Kurapika says, folding his arms over his chest and scowling. “I already knew it.”  
  
    “Sorry, sorry! I just...wow, you really know your stuff,” Leorio backtracks, holding up his hands apologetically.  
  
    “Is it that surprising?” Kurapika snaps. “Just because I’m not in school doesn’t mean I don’t know anything.”  
  
    “No, no, I know! I’m impressed. I don’t know anything about art history, and here I am dragging you through this museum when you probably know all about it already,” Leorio says quickly. “Listen, I know how it feels when people think you don’t know anything. When I was in med school last year, people were always, like, assuming I was dumb, just because I came from a shitty community college and wasn’t a rich kid. I get it.”  
  
    They continue into the Renaissance exhibit. The colors transform from muted reds and golds into luscious pastel blues and pinks. They pause to stare at a ceiling-high Caravaggio painting. Kurapika says nothing for a few minutes, still frowning.  
  
    “So you’re not studying medicine anymore? Why not?” Kurapika says at last.    
  
    Leorio shakes his head with a rueful laugh.  
  
    “Tuition is so frickin’ expensive that I’d have to sell a kidney. Which, I know how to operate on myself and take it out now, so, you know...”  
  
    “Aren’t there scholarships?”  
  
    “Not enough for what I’d need covered. Plus, I’m already in horrible debt.”  
  
    “From school?”  
  
    “That, and...” Leorio begins, unsure of how much information to divulge. “Um, my friend Pietro, the one who’s...sick, well, he doesn’t have anyone to help him. And healthcare in this country is so fucked up, so I, um. I had to take out some loans to cover some surgeries and stuff after the insurance ran out.”  
  
    He feels weird talking about it; only Zepile knows the extent of what’s going on with Pietro. Suddenly uncomfortable, he clears his throat and shrugs. “But, heh, it is what it is. What are you gonna do?”    
  
    “You dropped out of school because you’re paying for your friend’s hospital costs?”  
  
    “Well, uh...” Leorio rubs the back of his neck and looks at the floor. “Yeah.”  
  
    “And you want to become a doctor to help your friend. Is that correct?”  
  
    “Yeah,” Leorio replies, surprised at how quickly he figured it out. “Yeah. That’s exactly why.”  
  
    “What’s wrong with him?”  
  
    “Lung cancer,” Leorio answers, and to his surprise he feels sudden tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. He surreptitiously wipes his sleeve across his face and changes the topic. “Do you, uh, do you want to see the Chagall water lilies? It’s over there.”  
  
    Kurapika doesn’t move, still planted in front of the Caravaggio. He gives Leorio that unnerving look again.  
  
    “I’m sorry. Your friend is lucky to have you.”  
  
    “Oh, well, what can you do,” Leorio mumbles, embarrassed. “It’s just one of those things.”  
  
    “No,” Kurapika continues, his eyes wide and serious, “You’re a good man. You have a kind heart.”  
  
    What can Leorio possibly say to that? Kurapika has the ability to constantly throw him off-balance. He swallows over the lump in his throat and meets Kurapika’s intense gaze. For a moment they say nothing at all, standing in place as people filter around them.

* * *

     It’s already 4:30, and the museum is closing soon. Security guards begin the long process of herding visitors back into the entrance hall as Leorio and Kurapika rush through the rest of the European Paintings exhibit. The Chagall is so crowded that they can barely get a glimpse of it over everyone else’s heads.  
  
    “You have it easy,” Kurapika complains, grimacing and standing on his tiptoes. “You’re so tall.”  
  
    Leorio chuckles. “Yeah, it comes in handy. After you.” He elbows a path through a horde of Russian tourists so Kurapika can dart to the front for a look.  
  
    “You could spend a week in here and only see a fraction of the works,” Kurapika remarks as they walk back towards the exit hall. “It’s an incredible collection. Have you ever seen the Japanese wing?”  
  
    “Not yet,” Leorio says, peeling off his ticket sticker and tossing it into a trash can. “I bet it’s great, though.”  
  
    “I’d like to see it next time, if you’d care to join me,” Kurapika says with a small smile.  
  
    “Oh! Yeah! Definitely,” Leorio replies too quickly. His palms start to sweat. “Yeah!”  
  
    They leave the museum and walk back outside onto the marble stairs. It’s colder now that the sun is about to set. The sky is a dreamy shade of lavender. After looking at so many paintings, reality seems more colorful and vivid than usual. Leorio finds himself noticing more details; the interesting faces of strangers around him, individual leaves on the trees, the glint of Kurapika’s eyes in the twilight. He wants to say something slick about it, but as he opens his mouth, his stomach gives an audible grumble.  
  
    “Well,” Kurapika says, pulling a blue scarf out of his bag, “that was very nice. Thank you for inviting me.” He checks something on his phone, brow furrowing slightly.  
  
    “Do you wanna have dinner with me?” Leorio blurts. “There’s, um...there’s...good places to eat around here,” he finishes, cringing inwardly. _Real smooth, Casanova._ _  
_  
    Kurapika looks up from his phone, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “I would like that.”  
  
    “Great! Awesome. What do you like?”  
  
    “Anything is fine. I’m not picky.”  
  
    “Okay, but what do you like?”  
  
    “Like I said. Anything is fine.”  
  
    Leorio rolls his eyes. “Not helpful.”  
  
    “I know a place,” Kurapika relents. “Do you like sushi?”  
  
    “For sure!” Leorio lies enthusiastically. “Sounds great! Where is it?”  
  
    “Nolita. I’ll call a car,” Kurapika says, already typing something into his phone.  
  
    “Are you sure? I’m totally fine with the subway,” Leorio says anxiously, already tallying up how expensive a cab would be from here, but Kurapika shakes his head.  
  
    “This is easier. They’ll pick us up in five minutes.”  
  
    “Is it an Uber? I can split the cost with you, what’s your Venmo or PayPal or whatever?”  
  
    “No, this is a work perk. Don’t worry,” Kurapika says breezily, tucking his hair behind his ears.  
  
    “Uh. You work at a coffee shop,” Leorio says, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice. “No offense, but, uh, how the hell is that possible?”  
  
    Kurapika pretends not to hear him and glances back down at his phone. After another minute, a black Mercedes Benz with tinted windows glides up to the curb. Leorio’s mouth falls open.  
  
    Kurapika strides forward and opens the back door. He speaks rapidly in Japanese to the uniformed driver in the front as Leorio scrambles in after him and closes the door. The driver nods, accelerating back into traffic and rolling up the privacy screen between the front and back seats.  
  
    _Whoa_ .  
  
    “Uh. You speak Japanese? This is your ‘work perk’ from Daily Beans?” Leorio whispers in Kurapika’s ear as the car purrs along the avenue. “Am I missing something? Are you secretly a millionaire?”  
  
    Kurapika adjusts his seatbelt and says nothing.  
  
    “Kurapika.”  
  
    “Leorio.”  
  
    “You’re not gonna tell me anything, are you?”  
  
    “Perhaps another time,” Kurapika says. “Let’s have dinner first.”  
  
    Clearly the conversation is going nowhere. Leorio shrugs and settles back into the plush velvet seats, already dying to tell Pietro about this new development. The car moves soundlessly through rush hour traffic, nosing its way through bottlenecked cars at intersections. Kurapika folds his hands in his lap and looks out the window.  
  
    The driver comes to a stop on a small side street in Nolita. It’s a swanky part of town; all elegant brick buildings and expensive boutiques. Kurapika says something in Japanese to the driver, who nods and presses a button to automatically open the back doors.  
  
    Leorio tumbles out and looks around for a restaurant, but he can’t see anything that looks promising. Kurapika hurries ahead and turns down an alleyway, motioning for him to follow. They enter through an unmarked side door and climb a narrow flight of stairs. At the top, Kurapika punches a code into an electronic lock and opens a heavy metal door.  
  
    Inside is a small sushi bar in the traditional style; one small wooden counter with four seats. The walls are decorated with Japanese calligraphy and nature paintings, and a chef is concentrating intently on slicing up a piece of glistening tuna. Two men in expensive suits are occupying half of the bar, talking quietly and smoking cigarettes, and they nod respectfully at Kurapika as he sits down and gestures for Leorio to join him.  
  
    “I didn’t know you could smoke indoors in public in New York,” Leorio comments, struggling to fit his long legs underneath the wooden bar. “Isn’t that illegal?”  
  
    “We’re not in public,” Kurapika says, taking off his scarf. “Do you like sea urchin?”  
  
    Leorio gulps. “Uh.”  
  
    “It’s delicious. You’ll like it.”  
  
    Kurapika motions towards the chef, who nods and begins preparing something that looks like a glob of orange cat vomit. Leorio clutches a napkin in panic. A waitress in a beautiful light green kimono appears from nowhere with a ceramic pitcher of hot sake and pours them both a cup. Leorio picks his up to take a sip, but before it reaches his lips, Kurapika makes an affronted noise and places a hand on his arm.  
  
    “You’re supposed to wait for the other person,” Kurapika scolds. “Like this.”  
  
    He looks right into Leorio’s eyes and raises his glass. Ears burning, Leorio looks back at him and waits until the cup reaches Kurapika’s lips to take a sip. It’s hot and strong and delicious, but the taste is hard to pin down. Rice? Rubbing alcohol? Markers?  
  
    “Whoa! That’s great.”  
  
    “I do rather enjoy it,” Kurapika agrees, taking another sip. “Here’s the uni.”  
  
    The chef presents two tiny plates of the orange sea urchin with a flourish. Leorio nervously watches Kurapika for guidance as they both pick up their chopsticks. It’s served in its own prickly shell, and the whole thing looks challenging.  
  
    “How do you...uh. Is this a one bite kinda deal. Or...um.”  
  
    “Like this,” Kurapika says, deftly scooping out the urchin’s gloopy insides with his chopsticks and chewing thoughtfully. “Ah, it’s very fresh!”  
  
    It’s harder than it looks to get the slimy thing onto the chopsticks. Before Leorio loses his nerve, he slurps it down in one bite. It’s unlike anything he’s ever had: salty and rich, creamy and oddly sweet. Kurapika watches in amusement as Leorio smacks his lips and chases the mouthful with a long gulp of sake.  
  
    “So?”  
  
    “It’s...really weird,” Leorio answers honestly. “But I like it. I think.”  
  
    “My friend Killua said the same thing recently, when I introduced him to it,” Kurapika says, selecting a piece of tuna and dipping it carefully into his soy sauce. “Same reaction.”  
  
    “Oh? Is Killua cool? Does he have a refined palate like me?”  
  
    “Nope. Killua is eleven and subsists entirely off of Reese’s Cups,” Kurapika says, laughing with his hand over his mouth as Leorio glowers in mock outrage. “I’m just teasing. Uni is strange, I know. It was a childhood favorite for me, so perhaps my taste buds are clouded by sentimental memories.”  
  
    “No, no, it’s good. Just...slimy.”  
  
    “The rest won’t be so exotic,” Kurapika consoles him, raising a finger to beckon the chef again. “You’re a good sport.”  
  
    In quick succession, the chef brings them dozens of beautifully crafted pieces of sashimi and nigiri. The fish is flavorful and silky, and Leorio starts to actually enjoy the taste. Kurapika watches him eat, looking pleased.  
  
    Their conversation over dinner is lively and interesting. Kurapika loosens up considerably as he drinks. He has a great laugh, Leorio decides; quiet and bubbly but instantly contagious. Leorio tries to coax it out of him, telling alof his best stories about Zepile’s wacko artwork, Pietro’s terrible behavior with the nurses, and funny tidbits about medical school. The sake makes Leorio warm and expansive. He sweats through his jacket and talks until he’s out of breath.  
  
    Kurapika interjects in all the right places, listening carefully and nodding along. He’s particularly interested in Leorio’s stories about med school, asking detailed questions about his classes and subjects. When Leorio tells him about having to dissect human eyeballs in his anatomy lab, Kurapika goes pale and orders another bottle of sake.  
  
    After his third drink, Kurapika launches into a detailed retelling of the plot of a book he recently finished, gesticulating with his chopsticks and interrupting himself to explain complicated subplots and mention factoids about the author’s life. If it were anyone else, Leorio would be bored to tears, but Kurapika’s intensity is endearing.  
  
    Leorio tries to find sneaky, natural ways to touch Kurapika: brushing his hand when he reaches for soy sauce, leaning close to listen to him, pretending to pick a grain of rice out of Kurapika’s corn-silk hair. At one point Kurapika rests his head against Leorio’s upper arm, and Leorio freezes, heart racing, but after another beat Kurapika sits up to eat a piece of raw salmon.  
  
    After last plate is cleared away and they’ve finished the sake, Leorio decides it might be safe to ask more questions. Kurapika has gone a little pink around the ears, and he’s rolling up the sleeves of his tunic and leaning against the bar, looking relaxed and cheerful.  
  
    “Okay, so, no offense, but,” Leorio starts cautiously, “you don’t...look Japanese. But you speak it and obviously know a lot about it. Did you live there at some point?”  
  
    “Yes,” Kurapika says, stiffening.  
  
    “And...why was that?”  
  
    “I was born there and lived there until I was twelve. I’m not ethnically Japanese, clearly. But culturally, and on paper, I am.”  
  
    “Cool. Are your...um, were your parents teachers or something?”  
  
    “I’ll tell you another time,” Kurapika says, looking away and tensing his shoulders. Fair enough. Leorio tries a different angle.  
  
    “So. Tell me,” he says, leaning closer and grinning, “you basically just met me. What are you doing taking me to your secret sushi den and letting me ride in your fancy car, huh?”  
  
    “I owe you,” Kurapika says simply. “You helped me when I was injured.”  
  
    “You don’t owe me shit,” Leorio says, embarrassed. “I would have done the same for anyone.”  
  
    “Regardless, it was very kind of you.”  
  
    “No biggie. And besides, you’re the one who went Rambo on that junkie guy. If you hadn’t been there, I definitely would’ve gotten mugged. I’m the one who owes you.”  
  
    “Rambo?” Kurapika repeats, looking lost.  
  
    “It’s a movie about...uh. Never mind. Where did you learn whatever that was? Karate? Jujitsu?”  
  
    “It was a requirement for my job. I’ve been trained in it since I was ten, however.”  
  
    “At Daily Beans?” Leorio says slyly. “Yeah. Sure.”  
  
    “I’m not lying.”  
  
    “Listen, this act is cute and all, but you’re not telling me the truth, that’s for sure.”  
  
    Leorio says it jokingly, but the two men seated next to them stop talking and turn to stare at him. One of them reaches a hand inside of his suit jacket. Kurapika shakes his head almost imperceptibly, and both men relax and return their attention to their phones. As they move, Leorio notices the outline of a pistol through one man’s shirt.  
  
    _Oh, shit_ .  
  
    “It’s safer this way, if you don’t know the specifics,” Kurapika says, suddenly grave. “Trust me.”  
  
    “Why?” Leorio says with a nervous laugh, eyeing the bulges in the men’s suits. He’s flooded with a sickly jolt of adrenaline. “What, is someone gonna put a hit on me?”  
  
    “They might,” Kurapika replies without a trace of humor. “It happens to other people in the field. Let’s go,” he continues, standing up and shouldering his bag. The sushi chef bows to them, and Kurapika calls something in Japanese and turns to leave. Leorio ducks under the narrow doorframe and follows Kurapika back down the dark stairwell, starting to panic.  
  
    “What—don’t we need to pay?!”  
  
    “It’s taken care of,” Kurapika calls over his shoulder, two steps ahead of Leorio. “Don’t worry.”  
  
    They reach the street. Kurapika pulls out his phone, but Leorio rounds on him and backs him against the brick wall of the building, pulse rushing in his ears.  
  
    “What the hell was that about?”  
  
    “Please don’t stand so close,” Kurapika says calmly, staring at a point two inches to the left of Leorio’s face. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, it won’t work.”  
  
    Leorio takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair, breathing deeply.    
  
    “Shit. I’m sorry. I just...I really can’t get mixed up in anything weird right now. If this is something fishy, I’d rather know now. Why did those guys have guns? Do _you_ have a gun? What’s going on?”  
  
    “No!” Kurapika says forcefully. “No, Leorio, it’s nothing like that. Look, I—” He breaks off as his phone starts ringing, and he swears under his breath in another language. It doesn’t sound like any dialect Leorio’s ever heard. “Excuse me for a moment.”  
  
    He answers the call and speaks in rapid-fire Japanese for thirty seconds before hanging up, looking irate.  
  
    “Leorio, I apologize, but I have to go. It’s a work emergency. Daisuke will take you home.”  
  
    “What? It’s almost midnight! You have to go to work now?”  
  
    “I’ll explain later. I’m sorry.”  
  
    “What’s—”  
  
    Kurapika shakes his bangs out of his eyes, looking frustrated.  
  
    “I’m sorry, Leorio,” he says again. “I had a lovely day with you. I’ll be in touch soon.”  
  
    Before Leorio can get in a word in reply, Kurapika disappears into the alley.  
  
    The Mercedes Benz has appeared soundlessly on the curb again, and the driver rolls down the window and clears his throat. Leorio throws up his hands in frustration.  
  
    “Hey man, sorry, but I’ll just walk,” he calls into the car. “I live close. Sorry to make you wait.”  
  
    “Very good, sir,” the driver replies politely, rolling up the windows and turning off the engine.  
  
    Leorio shoves his hands in his pockets and walks home quickly, utterly perplexed. 

* * *

    Once he’s back in the apartment he’s too wound up to get ready for bed, so he knocks on Zepile’s door.  
  
    “C’mon in,” Zepile calls. Leorio walks into the messy studio and collapses on the couch, kicking aside some doll heads and narrowly avoiding a freshly painted canvas. “What’s up?”  
  
    Zepile is working on a painting that looks like someone inhaled a gallon of purple paint and sneezed it back out. He steps back and casts a critical eye over it, holding up his paintbrush for scale. Leorio heaves a dramatic sigh.  
  
    “I think I’m in over my head with this guy.”  
  
    “Oh yeah? What’s up? How was your museum hang? I told you the Met was too snobby.”  
  
    “No, he actually loved it, but, uh,” Leorio starts. “We had a pretty good time at the museum and then I asked if he wanted to get dinner, and he said he knew a place in Nolita and he called a car and this private driver in a brand-new Mercedes Benz showed up and took us to this secret sushi place, and there were two dudes with guns there, and you could smoke, and then he had a ‘work emergency’ and called the car for me, but I just walked cause it’s so close, and I feel bad for losing my temper with him, but honestly Zep, I don’t even know what to do. I think he’s got, like, bodyguards? Maybe he’s just super rich?” He closes his eyes and groans. “He’s so cool but also kinda...scary? There’s definitely something weird going on. And I think I overreacted and blew it. Ugh. I’m an idiot.”    
  
    “Holy shit. You rode in a new Mercedes?” Zepile asks reverently. “The S-Class? Dude, those are like...at least two hundred grand. Damn. How was it?”  
  
    “It was...fancy. I dunno. Did you even listen to what I said?”  
  
    Zepile squirts a glob of yellow paint onto his paintbrush and proceeds to splatter it onto the canvas. Leorio yelps as a drop of paint lands on his shirt.  
  
    “Zep! Watch it!”  
  
    “Oops. Sorry.” Zepile sets down the paintbrush and turns to look at Leorio. “Sounds like a weird time. So now what? You gonna see him again?”  
  
    “I mean...” Leorio says, chewing on the inside of his lip. “I probably...shouldn’t, right?” He thinks of Kurapika laughing and leaning against him, and his stomach does a backflip. “But...like...I feel like I should help him?”

  
    “Help him?” Zepile scoffs, opening a can of beer. “What are you gonna do?”  
  
    “I don’t know! It just seems...it seems like something is off. Like, he’s such a dork about art and books and stuff, and he’s really nice. Well, most of the time. He doesn’t seem like he’d be involved in something bad. But...those guys with guns...and he knows all this weird martial arts stuff...I dunno. I just don’t know. I know there’s more to the story.”  
  
    “Well, sounds like you’ve already made up your mind,” Zepile shrugs, taking a long swig of beer. “You’re into him. You’re gonna get laid if it means taking down the entire Mafia.”  
  
    “What? No! We’re just friends. I just—he’s a cool—he’s a cool person, and—” Leorio splutters. “Shut up. And I don’t think he’s in the _Mafia_. Jesus.”

    “Whatever. Can I have your laptop when you get whacked? And the PlayStation?” 

    Leorio throws a paintbrush at Zepile. He ducks, laughing.  
  
    “Oh, shut up. You’re a shitty friend.”  
  
    “No I’m not.”  
  
    “No you’re not,” Leorio admits, rolling off the couch and stealing a gulp of beer. “But I’m an idiot.”  
  
    “Yep. But you’ll figure it out. Give it a couple days. Who knows?” 

* * *

    Four days pass without a word from Kurapika. Leorio can’t figure out what to do with himself.  
  
    When he tries to call, it goes straight to voicemail, and his texts are all marked as delivered but unread. By the second day he starts to feel pathetic. After the seventh unreturned text ( _hey just wondering if everything is cool? do u need anything?_ ), Leorio forces himself to stop trying to reach Kurapika, hoping to preserve a sliver of dignity. He throws his phone onto his mattress with a groan.  
  
    It’s rainy and cold again, and it’s particularly dismal after the balmy weather of the previous week. The flowering plum trees grow sodden and bedraggled. Their blossoms fall off and collect in the muddy gutters along with soggy newspapers, cigarette butts, beer cans, condom wrappers, and all of the other leftovers of daily life in New York.    
  
    Leorio putters around the apartment, full of nervous energy but unwilling to do anything to expend it. Exercising sounds like a waste of time. He wishes he could call Senritsu to go see a concert, but she’s on tour in Brazil. His medical textbooks sit gathering dust on his desk. He casts a guilty eye over them whenever he walks into his bedroom, but when he cracks open his copy of Grey’s Anatomy, the words swim in front of his eyes and he can’t focus on anything. 

* * *

 

    Pietro is on a new cocktail of drugs this week: more sedatives, powerful steroids, and another round of antibiotics. It makes him drowsy and incoherent. He starts to hallucinate, babbling at Leorio about lobsters crawling on the ceiling and rambling on about the nurses trying to poison him. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so sad.  
  
    To calm Pietro, Leorio tunes the staticky television to old World Cup soccer matches. He wipes Pietro’s forehead with wet washcloths and uses a tiny sponge to dribble orange juice into his mouth. It’s the worst at night, when the sedatives are wearing off. Pietro grows frantic and combative. At one point, the nurses have to tie his wrists to the bed frame to prevent him from ripping out his catheter. He struggles mightily to wrench himself out of bed, swearing and clawing at the air. Whenever it happens, Leorio has to hold him down until it’s over.  
  
    “Fuckin bitch!” Pietro rages, batting at Leorio’s hands. “I know I saw her putting something in my drink! They’re trying to kill me, I know they are! I hear them whispering in the halls—I know it’s something bad—you gotta get me outta here, man, you gotta help me!”  
  
    His eyes are bloodshot and wild. The heart monitor bleeps out a warning.  
  
    “I know,” Leorio agrees soothingly, “I know, don’t worry, we’ll get you outta here. Just chill out for now so I can get you out, okay?”  
  
    Pietro scowls, but he allows Leorio to ease him back onto the pillows.  
  
    “I wanna go home,” he says plaintively. His face crumples into a childlike pout as Leorio adjusts his jostled IVs and wires. “I don’t like it here. I wanna go home.”  
  
    “I know, buddy. We’re working on it.”

* * *

    The second Tuesday of the month is Leorio’s visit with Gon. Usually Leorio takes him out for lunch or a movie, but this time, Gon wants to go fishing.  
  
    Leorio has never gone fishing in his life, so on Monday night he buys a used fishing pole at the Salvation Army on 4th Avenue. Zepile accompanies him to shop for hideously ugly old wedding dresses.  
  
    “I need it for my project,” Zepile explains, partially hidden by an armful of stained white taffeta. “It’s harder than you’d think to find the really bad ones. Too many alternative Brooklyn girls are wearing them for their punk shows these days. The Goodwills are all picked clean from here to Washington Heights.”  
  
    “Huh,” Leorio offers, long past questioning Zepile’s aesthetic choices. “Sounds tough.”  
  
    Tuesday morning brings even more rain. Leorio borrows Zepile’s raincoat and takes the mind-numbingly long subway ride into Queens, awkwardly carrying his fishing pole. It was a nightmare getting it through the ticket turnstile. No matter how he wedges it between his legs, it keeps clattering around whenever the train rounds a bend or stops abruptly. A few passengers roll their eyes at him, but luckily the train empties out as it travels deeper into Brooklyn.  
  
    When Leorio gets to Mito’s apartment, Gon is already outside waiting on the steps with his fishing pole, vibrating with excitement.  
  
    “Hi! You took a long time today,” he cries, leaping up from the stairs to hug Leorio around the middle.  
  
    “I think the train was extra slow,” Leorio apologizes, smiling. He ruffles Gon’s spiky hair. “So where should we go? Do people even fish in New York?”  
  
    “Duh! Let’s go to the Brooklyn piers. There’s gonna be lots of good stuff there.”  
  
    Leorio grimaces. “Really? It’s not gonna be all mutated and radioactive?”  
  
    “Nooooo. There’ll be good stuff! I promise! You just have to know where to look.”  
     
    “Ugh. Okay. Fine. You ready? You warm enough in that?”  
  
    Gon nods, beaming. “Let’s go!”  
  
    The idea of sitting in the cold rain trawling for inedible Brooklyn fish sounds horrible, but Leorio can’t deny Gon anything. He steels himself and zips up his jacket.  
  
    “Okay. If we hurry we can catch the next train.”  
  
    Gon talks nonstop for most of the subway ride, telling Leorio about funny things Mito said at breakfast, assignments at school, a family of frogs recently discovered in his backyard. Leorio nods along and occasionally interjects, but it’s hard to keep his mind from wandering back to Kurapika.  
  
    He sneaks a glance at his phone as Gon launches into a new tangent about a kid in his math class. For once his phone isn’t dead, and a blinking text notification sends a thrill of adrenaline through his nerves, but to his great annoyance it’s only a reminder from his dentist to schedule a routine cleaning soon. Sighing, he shoves his phone deeper into his pocket.  
  
    “...and then Killua said we should try to see who’s the strongest and who can do the most pushups, and then when we went fishing in the gutters he—”  
  
    Leorio’s ears perk up. “Killua?”  
  
    Gon nods breathlessly. “Yeah, my friend Killua who’s new in school and really cool! He’s so good at computers and he just moved here from Japan and he can do this thing with his nails where he—”  
  
    “Do you have his number?”  
  
    “Yeah!”  
  
    Leorio’s pulse quickens. “Can you give it to me?”  
  
    Gon nods and unzips a pocket to pull out his cell phone. When he looks at the screen, his face falls.  
  
    “Oh. It’s dead. I forgot to ask Aunt Mito to charge it last night. Sorry!”  
  
    “Ah. Darn.”  
  
    The train emerges from a tunnel and crosses a desolate grassy field littered with trash and industrial waste. Gon cocks his head and fixes Leorio with his bright gaze.  
  
    “Why does Leorio want Killua’s number?”  
  
    “Oh, I...” Leorio begins, scratching his nose, “well, he knows a...friend of mine. And my friend might be in trouble, so I want to talk to people who know him.”  
  
    That appears to satisfy Gon. He presses his face against the window like a dog to watch the scenery whizz by, leaving a constellation of smudges on the glass. Leorio cringes and makes a mental note to spray Gon’s entire face with hand sanitizer before taking him home.  
  
    It’s raining even harder when they reach the High Street station, and the wind is picking up. Bedraggled people hurry towards shelter, clutching inside-out umbrellas and holding folded newspapers over their heads.  
  
    “You sure you still wanna do this?” Leorio yells over the downpour as they scramble up the wet subway stairs. “We could go see a movie! I think there’s a new Transformers one out.”  
  
    “The fish like it when it’s raining,” Gon calls back, cheerful and stubborn. “It’s perfect weather!”

* * *

    It’s not perfect weather. It’s so wet and cold that Leorio shivers for hours after he drops Gon back off at Mito’s and takes the infinitely long subway ride back to Chinatown, drenched to the bone and still holding his fishing rod.  
  
    Gon managed to catch five disgusting mud-covered creatures, all of which he proudly brought back to a horrified Mito. Leorio’s hands still smell like fish scales from helping Gon wrap the still-writhing things in old newspapers. The waves were crashing against the pier so violently that Leorio’s pants are soaked in salt water up to his knees. All in all, it was a dreadful experience. Gon seemed ecstatic the whole time, talking a mile a minute and sprinting through the mud joyfully like a puppy. Leorio can’t say no to him to save his life.  
  
    When Leorio is finally back at his apartment, he plugs in his phone and texts Gon.  
  
    _Hey bud! Great to see you today. Don’t eat those things you caught. Can you send me your friend Killua’s number?_ _  
_  
    He goes to take a long hot shower, scrubbing his fishy hands for a long time with Zepile’s strong peppermint soap. He hears his phone chime with Gon’s text alert while he’s toweling off, and pads into the bedroom to check it, dripping onto the floor.  
  
    _Yah! Thnx Leorio for taking me fishing. Told you it was good wether! Killua is 970-555-2845 :)_ _  
_  
    Leorio saves the number into his contacts and sinks onto his bed, squeezing the moisture out of his hair. He dials Killua’s number and puts the phone on speakerphone while he gets dressed in an old pair of jeans and a warm sweatshirt.  
  
    “Hello?”

    It’s a man’s voice; reedy and slightly accented. Leorio pauses. 

   “Um. Hello? Can I speak to Killua?” 

    “Why? Who’s calling?”  
  
    “This is, uh, a friend of Gon Freecs,” Leorio says, putting on a pair of socks. “From school?”  
  
    “You have the wrong number,” the voice hisses, and hangs up abruptly.  
  
    Leorio pauses halfway through putting on a sock. He double checks that he saved the number from Gon correctly; he did, it’s right. Just to be sure, he tries calling again, typing out the digits manually instead of using the contact information. After one ring, the same adult voice picks up.  
  
    “Don’t call again.”  
  
    “Wait!” Leorio says, but the line is already dead. “Fuck!”  
  
    _So much for that,_ he thinks, grimacing. He finishes with his socks and traipses into the kitchen to forage for a snack. The only thing he can find is a half-empty carton of stale rice. He eats it with his hands over the sink, grumpy and unsatisfied. 

* * *

     Six days after his sushi dinner with Kurapika, Leorio gets a text in the middle of the night from another unfamiliar number. Half-asleep, he rummages around on his nightstand for his phone to silence its buzzing, glancing at the notification with one eye squeezed shut. It’s 4:17 am.  
  
    _Hello Leorio. I apologize for the other evening._ _  
_  
    The typing bubble appears and disappears for a few times before the next message arrives. Leorio props himself up on a pillow and clicks on his bedside lamp.  
  
    _It’s Kurapika. If you’re up, give a call at this number._ _  
_  
    Leorio is wide awake at once. Rubbing the grit out of his eyes, he dials the unfamiliar number and puts the phone up to his ear, watching the stream of traffic down on the street below. Kurapika picks up after two rings.  
  
    “Hi, Leorio.”  
  
    “Hey.”  
  
    “Did I wake you up?”  
  
    “No, no,” Leorio lies, trying to clear the raspiness from his throat, “I was already up.” He pauses, picking at a seam on his nubby blanket. “Kurapika, what’s going on with you? Are you all right? I’ve been really worried about you.”  
  
    There’s a gusty sigh on Kurapika’s end.  
  
    “I’m sorry, Leorio.”  
  
    “What’s your deal with phones? You’re so damn hard to get ahold of.”  
  
    “I know. I—I’m sorry. I’ll explain another time.”  
  
    Kurapika sounds less assured than usual, and his voice is hoarse with fatigue. Leorio’s irritation melts away.  
  
    “What are you doin’ up at this time, anyways? You sound tired.”  
  
    “I’m all right,” Kurapika says, and sighs again. “Actually, I...”  
  
    Leorio waits, rolling a loose thread in his fingers.  
  
    “I wanted to hear your voice,” Kurapika finishes, very softly. “I’m sorry to bother you.”  
  
    “You’re not bothering me.”  
  
    “Oh. That’s good.”  
  
    They’re both silent for a minute.  
  
    “Can I see you again soon?” Leorio asks, his voice barely above a whisper.  
  
    “Yes. Tomorrow?”  
  
    “Sure. Want me to come over? We can have coffee in your neighborhood or something.  
  
    “That’s...not a good idea,” Kurapika says, evasive again, “but would you like to go on a run in the park? I promise I’ll explain more. About the other night.”  
  
    “A run?” Leorio can’t remember the last time he ran for pleasure. “Um. Sure. What time?”  
  
    “4 pm? At the 72nd street station?”  
  
    “Sounds good,” Leorio agrees, closing his eyes. “Hey. It’s good to hear from you.”  
  
    Kurapika says nothing, but Leorio listens to his steady breathing on the line for a long time. 

* * *

     The next morning he realizes that they must have both fallen asleep on the phone. Their call log was 5 hours and 17 minutes. He shudders, thinking about how expensive his cell bill will be, but it was nice to fall asleep like that. He wants it to happen again. 

* * *

     Leorio offered to pick Kurapika up at his place, but Kurapika remains mysterious about where he lives, so at 3:55 pm the following afternoon, Leorio finds himself pacing outside of the station, adjusting the laces of his battered running shoes and admiring the bright yellow daffodils and tiny purple crocuses growing through the cracks in the sidewalk.  
  
    He’s nervous about their run. Between Pietro’s hospitalization and dealing with school, he doesn’t exactly stick to a stringent workout schedule. He’s worried that he’ll be embarrassingly out of shape compared to Kurapika, who seems lithe and athletic, like a gymnast or dancer.  
  
    But it’s another beautiful spring day, up in the 70s with a humid breeze shaking the boughs of the cherry trees and raining blossoms onto the dirty streets, and Leorio is filled with nervous energy. It’ll feel good to burn it off. Being around Kurapika makes Leorio so antsy that running may actually improve their conversation.  
  
    “Are you warmed up?” Kurapika says in lieu of greeting, appearing suddenly at Leorio’s elbow. “Let’s get going before the sun sets.”  
  
    He’s wearing a white t-shirt and black leggings, and his running shoes are much cleaner than Leorio’s. They’re a Japanese brand that Leorio doesn’t recognize. His silky hair is tied back in a nubby little ponytail. Leorio suppresses the urge to tug at it.  
  
    “Oh! Hey. I didn’t see you. Yeah, let’s get moving. It’s so nice out!”  
  
    “Mm.”  
  
    They set off down 72nd street and head towards Central Park. Once they’ve crossed the street into the Sheep Meadow, they start running. They dodge picnicking families and kids throwing baseballs. The damp grass is spongy underneath Leorio’s feet. Kurapika sets a difficult pace right from the start, and Leorio feels winded before they’ve even crossed the meadow.  
  
    “Do you—do you run—often?” Leorio wheezes, struggling to avoid a horse-drawn carriage as they weave across the street that separates the Sheep Meadow from the wooded trails deeper in the park. “You’re—really—fast.”  
  
    Kurapika’s breathing is calm and even, and he hasn’t even broken a sweat.  
  
    “It’s part of my training. I like running. I find it meditative,” he says once they reach the start of the trail. “It quiets my mind.”  
  
    They don’t speak for five minutes or so as they run deeper into the woods. The sunlight casts dappled shadows across the trail as it filters through the sparse new growth on the trees. Occasionally they pass other runners, who nod wordlessly to them.  
  
    Leorio’s mind is decidedly unquiet. His breathing is coming in erratic spurts, and Kurapika looks alarmingly good in his running clothes. The leggings cling to his slim frame in a way that sends Leorio’s pulse straight to his groin. Besides, he’s burning with curiosity about what Kurapika has to say to him. He hopes that Kurapika isn’t one of those people who prefers running in total silence.  
  
    Birds chatter in the treetops. An ambulance wails in the distance until the sound is swallowed up by the hum of a low-flying jet. For about ten minutes, Leorio focuses on matching his breathing to his footfalls. His body loosens up, and the run starts to feel good. He keeps his eyes fixed on Kurapika’s ponytail bouncing up and down in front of him, and tries not to focus too much on the rest of his body.  
  
    “How is your friend doing?” Kurapika calls back after a while, finally sounding slightly out of breath. “Is he still in the hospital?”  
  
    “Yeah. He’s...probably not going to be going home anytime soon,” Leorio pants. “It’s pretty bad.”  
  
    “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do? I’d be happy to help.”

     They slow down to watch their footing as they reach a narrower, rockier section of the trail. There are gnarled tree roots all over the path, and one misstep could lead to a badly twisted ankle.  
  
    “Oh. No. That’s...really nice of you,” Leorio replies, touched by his earnestness. “This is nice, though. It’s good to just get outside after being in the hospital,” he adds.  
  
    “I can imagine.” Kurapika is silent for a moment, wiping the sweat from his brow with his slender wrist. “Do...do you need help...financially?”  
  
    Leorio stumbles on a tree root and almost falls. He catches himself just in time, heart pounding furiously, and struggles to correct his pace.  
  
    “What? No. No, that’s—no.”  
  
    “You could say a number, and I could arrange for it to be taken care of. You don’t have to feel embarrassed about it. You could even go back to school.”  
  
    Leorio bristles.  
  
    “I’m not embarrassed,” he says swiftly. “I never said that.”  
  
    Kurapika increases his pace, leaping over a patch of jagged rocks. “I understand being too proud to accept help, but I don’t think you comprehend what I’m—”  
  
    “You’re outta line,” Leorio says, his voice suddenly harsh. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, all right? Just drop it.”  
  
    He slows to a stop and leans over to rest his hands on his thighs, breathing hard. Kurapika, ahead of him, keeps running for another twenty feet.  
  
    “Hey—hold on. Stop running. Wait!”  
  
    Kurapika comes to a halt and pivots to face him, shading his eyes from the sun with a hand. His hair glows like a halo in the late afternoon light.  
  
    Leorio puts his hands on his head, trying to slow his breathing.  
  
    “I’m not some charity case, okay? I have enough shit on my plate,” he says bitterly, wiping his sweaty face with the corner of his shirt. “This has nothing to do with my pride. I don’t want your rich dad’s money or whatever this is—”  
  
    “It’s not my father’s money,” Kurapika interrupts, and his eyes are turning that strange color again. “My father is dead. My family is dead.”

    Caught off guard, Leorio pauses for a beat, wondering if he heard correctly. He had already guessed from their conversation at the museum that Kurapika’s mother was gone, but his father, too?

    “...What?”  
  
    “Everyone in my family is dead,” Kurapika repeats flatly. “They were killed. I’m not wealthy. It’s not family money.”  
  
    Leorio’s ears burn with shame. His cruel remark is still hanging in the air like a noxious odor, and he wishes desperately that he could take it back. A leaden weight settles over his chest.  
  
    _Killed…?_

    They’re standing at the top of a grassy hill, looking down at another meadow full of flowering garden patches and frolicking toddlers. The sun is setting over the pond, painting the calm water and soft clouds a beautiful shade of peach. Kurapika sighs heavily and drags his palms over his face, rubbing his eyes.  
  
    “I should go,” he says, looking bleak. “I overstepped my boundaries. Forgive me.”  
  
    He starts to walk away, and Leorio grabs him by the wrist.  
  
    “Wait! Wait. Hold on. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m sorry. It’s just—money is a touchy issue for me right now,” Leorio says, struggling to catch his breath. He loosens his hold on Kurapika’s bony wrist.  
  
    Kurapika inclines his head curtly and yanks his arm away from Leorio’s grasp.  
  
    “I understand. I apologize. I’ll be going now.”  
  
    “Wait! Can we—can we just talk?” Leorio implores, restraining himself from reaching for Kurapika, “I just—I don’t know what to make of this. I didn’t—I had no idea. Can we talk for a minute?”  
  
    Kurapika eyes him suspiciously.  
  
    “You want to talk?”  
  
    “Yes. Kurapika. You said you would explain things to me. You said...you said you’d explain what happened the other night,” Leorio says, holding out his hands imploringly. “I just...want to know more about you. You come into my life out of nowhere, and all of a sudden we’re spending time together but I have no clue who you are or what you do, and everything about you is...well, it’s not...what I’m used to.”  
  
    He finishes and waits cautiously, kicking at a patch of dirt and drying his sweaty face with the corner of his shirt.  
  
    The last rays of the setting sun illuminate Kurapika’s dark eyes. He studies Leorio for a while, head tilted to the side, a muscle working in his cheek.  
  
    “I trust you,” he says quietly after a long moment.  
  
    Leorio hesitates.  
  
    “Okay.”  
  
    “But if you don’t trust me, then this is when you should leave. I would understand. I won’t hold it against you if you don’t want to see me again.”  
  
    “Um,” Leorio says, swallowing hard over the lump in his throat. “Okay. Fair enough.”  
  
    Kurapika takes a deep breath.  
  
    “Are you familiar with the Kurtan massacre? It happened eight years ago in Takayama.”  
  
    The phrase rings a bell; Leorio wracks his brains but can’t remember much. He knows that it was something about a weird cult that got murdered in the mountains in Japan. He’s blurry on the details, but tendrils of dread are curling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
    “Um...”  
  
    “I’m Kurtan. Or rather, I was.”  
  
    Kurapika fixes his gaze on the horizon and keeps talking, his voice oddly monotone.  
  
    “I am the only survivor of the cultural genocide that occurred in 2011. My entire clan was murdered when I was twelve years old.”  
  
    A cold wave of adrenaline washes through Leorio’s system.  
  
    “Oh my god. That...that was your family?” He takes a shaky inhale, feeling nauseous. “Oh, Kurapika. I’m so sorry.”  
  
    “You noticed my eyes the other day. You weren’t wrong, and I panicked. The Kurtan people were famous for our unique eyes. When experiencing a strong emotion, our eyes turn red. When we are truly furious, our eyes turn a unique shade of scarlet. After torturing and murdering my clan, the killers mutilated their corpses and removed their eyes to sell on the black market. Certain individuals collect the eyes of my family and friends.”  
  
    Kurapika looks away from him and keeps talking. His voice is cold and clinical, but Leorio notices that his hands are trembling.  
  
    “Since then, it has been my mission to reclaim the stolen eyes of my people. I have had to make unsavory alliances to get closer to my goal. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, in this case.”  
  
    “So...there are other people trying to...get the eyes?”  
  
    “Yes. I was able to acquire a position with the local branch of the Yakuza here in the city. Their connections are helpful to me.”  
  
    “The Yakuza?”  
  
    “It’s Japan’s equivalent of the Mafia.”  
  
    “Oh. Whoa.” Leorio pauses, his mind filling with images of gangsters from old film noir movies. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but...um...how on earth did that happen?”

    “I don’t give up easily,” Kurapika says, and there’s a frightening glint of determination in his eyes that makes Leorio believe him. “I had to spend several years gathering information in both Japan and New York. I started working as an errand boy for the lower-tier members after securing a job at Daily Beans. After I proved myself to be a reliable employee, it was easy to move up the ranks.”

    “Wait. What does Daily Beans have to do with it?”

    “It’s a front. A common tactic in the business for money laundering. As far as the IRS knows, Daily Beans is nothing more than an unusually successful espresso bar.”

    Leorio doesn’t really get it, but he nods anyways, processing all of this.

    “So...what do you..do, exactly?”

    “I’m a bodyguard for the boss’s daughter. Primarily, I accompany her to functions such as—”

    “Oh,” Leorio interrupts, a new piece of information clunking into place, “sorry. You mean that girl with pink hair who’s always at Daily Beans, right? And with you at the flute concert? At first I thought she was your girlfriend, but...”  
  
    “Yes. That’s Neon Nostrade. She is abhorrent to me, but it’s my duty to protect her.”  
  
    “What’s wrong with her? Spoiled rotten?”  
  
    “That, and she is a flesh collector,” Kurapika says, his voice becoming expressionless again. “She wishes to obtain a pair of Kurtan eyes. When the opportunity arises, I will be accompanying her to supervise the transaction.”  
  
    Leorio raises his hands over his head and lets them fall. He wishes he could think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound pointless and hollow.  
  
    “God,” he begins, his tongue feeling thick and heavy in his mouth. “I’m...I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sorry. Jesus. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I thought you were secretly, like, a rich kid of some businessman. I had no idea. Fuck.”  
  
    “I don’t need your pity,” Kurapika replies swiftly. “But I want you to know that I trust you, and that I would like to help you, if I can.” His voice softens. “I think you’re a good person. I know what it’s like to be dealt a bad hand in life. The money I’m offering would be coming from people who would never miss it. They don’t deserve their wealth. They are crooks.”  
  
    “No way. I can’t possibly let you do that.”  
  
    “Why not?”  
  
    “Because...” Leorio begins, running a hand through his sweat-slick hair, “I...I can’t ask you to put yourself in danger for me. We just met. This is crazy.”  
  
    “Well, think it over, at least.”  
  
    The sun has dipped below the horizon, and the air is growing cooler. The birds are still singing in the trees. Around them, families laugh and play with their children, carefree and happy.  
  
    Leorio stares in disbelief at Kurapika, feeling a deep ache of sorrow for the unthinkable depths of the grief and rage he must feel every day. He’s overcome with a fierce desire to protect and help him.  
  
    “I know you don’t want my pity, and that’s not what this is,” Leorio says quietly, placing a tentative hand on Kurapika’s shoulder. “I understand that. But I want you to know that I am sorry that this happened to you.”  
  
    “It’s fine,” Kurapika says reflexively, eyes flashing, “it’s in the past, I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, I just—”  
  
    Before he can finish the sentence, Leorio wraps Kurapika’s small frame in a hug.  
  
    “You didn’t deserve to have this happen to you. You don’t have to be tough about it.”  
  
    Kurapika’s entire body is as tense as a steel fiber. Leorio feels his heartbeat thudding though his thin cotton t-shirt. Kurapika continues to hold himself tight, but his wild heartbeat gradually slows.  
  
    “Do you have anyone you can talk to?” Leorio murmurs into Kurapika’s hair, and he feels the shake of his head against his chest. “Oh, Kurapika. Nobody? No friends?  
  
    “It’s too dangerous,” Kurapika says, his voice muffled against Leorio’s collarbone. “It’s too dangerous. I can’t involve anyone in this. I shouldn’t have told you, even, it’s—”  
  
          His voice is growing frantic. Leorio squeezes him closer and strokes his feather-soft hair, breathing in the smell of his minty shampoo.  
  
    “It’s okay. Hey. It’s all right. I’m your friend. I wanna help you.”  
  
    Kurapika breaks free of Leorio’s grasp and looks up into his face, his eyes dark and serious.  
  
    “I’m not a good person. I’ve done terrible things. I don’t—I don’t know if you should—”  
  
    “I’ll make up my own mind, okay?” Leorio says gently, touching the side of Kurapika’s cheek. “I’m an adult. Don’t worry.”  
  
    Kurapika’s eyelids flutter. He leans into Leorio’s palm for a fraction of a second before pulling away and fidgeting with his bangs.  
  
    “That’s—well.” He pauses to clear his throat. “Thank you for your kindness,” he continues, returning to his awkward formality. “You’re...you’re a good friend.”  
  
    Before Leorio can reply, Kurapika takes off running again, leaping across the grass like a gazelle.

    “We should head back before it gets dark,” he calls over his shoulder, yellow hair flying in the breeze. “I’ll race you back to the meadow!”  
  
    Leorio watches Kurapika’s small form disappear over the crest of the hill. He shakes his head, bewildered, and sprints after him into the dusk.

* * *

    After parting ways with Kurapika, Leorio takes the train downtown to see Pietro. He gets to the hospital at 8:30, right as the day and night employees are switching shifts. He enters the busy lobby and takes the elevator up to the ICU, darting between all of the doctors and nurses streaming in and out. Seeing them bustle off to work in their scrubs gives him a pang of envy. His internship feels like a lifetime ago.  
  
    The elevator dings to a stop. He sighs and begins the long trek down the hall, passing the familiar ugly landscape paintings and the perpetually broken coffee machine.  
  
    “So how was it?” Pietro asks, struggling to prop himself up in bed as Leorio walks into his room. “You’re all sweaty.”  
  
    “Oh, yeah, we ran. Um. It was,” Leorio begins, unsure where to start. “Um, it was...it was cool. He, uh, he told me a lot. I don’t know if I can even explain everything.”  
  
    “What, you think I got something better to do?” Pietro grumbles, adjusting his tangle of tubes and wires. “C’mon, I’m so bored. Tell me. Did you get some?” He wiggles his thinning eyebrows lasciviously.  
  
    “No!” Leorio yelps, swatting Pietro’s leg through the blankets. “God.”  
  
    “But you’re totally in looooove,” Pietro laughs. “It’s all over your face.”  
  
    His breathing has acquired a nasty gurgling rattle. It sounds like he’s drowning. Leorio’s stomach clenches at the sound, but he hoists a grin onto his face and forces a laugh, settling onto his usual spot on the narrow windowsill. As always, the metal frame digs into his skinny ass. He makes a mental note to ask the nurses for a better chair.  
  
    “Um. Okay. It’s kinda...really insane. Do you know anything about the Kurta tribe?”  
  
    Pietro purses his lips, thinking. “Is that, like, those weird Amish kinda people who lived in Japan? That got serial killer-ed? With the red eyes?”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    “They got totally wiped out, right?”  
  
    “Yeah. Except for one survivor,” Leorio says grimly. “Which is...”  
  
    Slowly, the realization spreads across Pietro’s face. His eyes widen in disbelief.  
  
    “No shit. Really? You’re shitting me.”  
  
    “No. Wish I was.”  
  
    “Damn,” Pietro breathes, pressing his morphine button. Leorio watches his face go slack for an moment as the drug hits his bloodstream. “That’s crazy.”  
  
    “And he’s, uh,” Leorio continues, “well, he’s trying to get their eyes back from people who bought them. And stole them.”  
  
    “Yikes,” Pietro slurs. “I mean. It makes sense. But. Big yikes. Watch out, L’rio.”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    He nods off for a moment. Leorio adjusts his position on the windowsill and waits until Pietro jerks awake again.  
  
    “So what. You’re gonna like. What. Track down the bad guys? Save the day?” Pietro teases. “You can’t resist that kinda shit. I know you.”  
  
    “Aw, shut up,” Leorio laughs, rubbing his neck self-consciously. “I mean. I do want to help, but...”  
  
    “Do your thing, man. That’s cool. Tha’s cool there’s still a Kurta left. Thought they were all gone. I watched some documentary on it a while ago.”  
  
    “There’s a documentary?” Leorio asks, perking up. “Really?”  
  
    “Yeah, they have HBO in the nicer rooms here. I watched it after the ostomy surgery. It was pretty gross.”  
  
    “What, the surgery? Duh.”  
  
    “No,” Pietro says, frowning, “the documentary. Of the murders. They have, like, footage of it. Of the crime scene and stuff.”  
  
    “God. That’s...that’s horrible. That’s so fucked up.” Leorio thinks of twelve-year-old Kurapika and is filled with indignation. “They shouldn’t let people see that.”  
  
    “Yeah. It’s really gross. Poor guy,” Pietro agrees, and falls asleep again.  
  
    Leorio putters around the room for an hour while Pietro dozes, checking dosage charts and heart monitors. It looks like they’ve upped his morphine but kept everything else the same. They were supposed to start him on another round of antibiotics to fight off the infection in his heart. Leorio frowns. He’ll have to talk to the night nurses.  
  
    Presently Pietro is waking up and ferreting around for his cell phone. Leorio rounds on him, pointing at the chart taped to his nightstand.  
  
    “So when’s the pulmonary specialist coming back in?” Leorio asks, trying to keep the accusatory tone out of his voice. “Did you tell him not to? It doesn’t look like they changed anything with your meds today.”  
  
    Pietro coughs and grimaces in pain, pressing the morphine button twice. Leorio fights back the urge to scold him.  
  
    “He’s not.” Pietro spits a mouthful of red-tinged froth into the bowl on his nightstand. “S’just the palliative people.”  
  
    “What? No, c’mon. I talked to him last week, he said we’d do a consultation today,” Leorio says, lowering his voice as a nurse comes into the room to check Pietro’s chart. “Dude, he said can get you into surgery next week.”  
  
    “You need to get your head out of your ass,” Pietro rasps. He pauses to cough violently, his gaunt frame doubled over. “Listen to me.”  
  
    “You’re too high on morphine right now,” Leorio says brusquely. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I told you to only do one hit at a time.”  
  
    Pietro watches him with a resigned smile for a moment before turning his head to stare out the window. Wispy clouds are scudding across the pink evening sky.  
  
    “L’rio,” he says, his voice blurry from the drugs. “I don’t have much time left, not at all. I wanna talk before it’s too late.”  
  
    “You’re too high. I don’t wanna talk to you about this until you’re in your right mind,” Leorio repeats, his throat tight with unshed tears. “I’m gonna call Doctor Carroll again. Man, I really think if they go in and scrape out a little more of the tumor in your left lung, it’s gonna make a big difference. There’s a new surgeon who seems great too, he just transferred here from Stanford.” He can hear the false optimism in his voice. “And there’s that other new clinical trial, too. We haven’t even heard back yet!”  
  
    “I can feel my body shutting down.”  
  
    “You don’t know what you’re saying,” Leorio repeats, and he can’t stop the flow of hot tears that start to roll down his face. He brushes them away angrily and stalks over to the window, unable to meet Pietro’s searching eyes. “You’re talking bullshit. Nobody’s said anything about giving up yet.”  
  
    “I’m tired, Leorio.”  
  
    “I’ll get them to up your Ambien. You just need a good night’s sleep.”  
  
    Out of the corner of his eye, Leorio sees Pietro turn his head a fraction of an inch towards the windows.  
  
    “I’m not scared of it. I’m fucking tired of being in the hospital. If this is all my life is gonna be, I don’t want it anymore.”  
  
    A sob is clawing its way out of Leorio’s chest. He breathes deeply to control it, watching a flock of geese flying in a V formation high above the Manhattan rooftops.  
  
    “Pietro. You just gotta hang on for this next surgery and then you can go home. I promise. We’ll—we’ll fix up the apartment. I’ll find a really good rehab place for you to heal up from the next surgery and then you’ll be out of here.”  
  
    “You’re so goddamn stubborn,” Pietro grumbles, but his voice has a hint of laughter in it. “Can’t you just listen to me for a minute?”  
  
    “I’m listening.”  
  
    “I’m not scared.”  
  
    Even over the thrum of the machines, Leorio can hear his own heartbeat.    
  
    “Yeah?”  
  
    “Well,” Pietro amends, “not of, like...being dead.” He winces as he repositions his frail legs under the blankets. “I’m scared of being in more pain. And of not being in my right mind, and stuff. But I think...I think dying will be okay.” He clutches his rosary beads on the nightstand. “I dunno. I’m just...curious, I guess. But I’m not scared.”  
  
    Leorio sinks onto the bed next to Pietro.  
  
    “Well, I’m scared. I don’t...”  
  
    He can’t finish the thought, but he knows that Pietro understands.  
  
    “You’ll be okay, Leorio,” Pietro says, far too kindly, and he puts a hand on Leorio’s back as he starts to cry again.  
  
    “I’m supposed to be the one taking care of you,” Leorio chokes out, grabbing a tissue and blowing his nose. He feels horribly guilty. “This is so stupid.”  
  
    “Yeah. But you’ll be fine.”  
  
    They’re quiet for a while. Pietro drifts in and out of consciousness, his translucent eyelids half-closed. Leorio sniffles into a tissue and tries to pull himself together. His leg is cramping from how he’s wedged in place, but he can’t bring himself to move from the bed quite yet. The room grows dark. When the night nurses come in to check vital signs, Leorio makes a ‘shhh’ gesture and nods towards Pietro. An orange crescent moon rises, hazy behind the city’s thick layer of smog.  
  
    “Hey, Pietro?” Leorio whispers at one point, but Pietro is fast asleep.  
  
    Carefully, Leorio slides off of the bed and tiptoes out of the room. When he gets to the door, he pauses and looks back at Pietro’s sleeping face in the moonlight.  
  
    “See ya tomorrow,” he murmurs, and closes the door behind him. 

* * *

    It’s almost 4 am, and Leorio can’t sleep.  
  
    Like most New York City homes, their apartment lacks air conditioning. It gets stuffy in his bedroom, so he likes to open his rusty windows to let a breeze inside while he sleeps.  Unfortunately, this also means that he’s treated to a nightly symphony of wailing sirens, blaring car alarms, stray cats yowling at one another, rumbling engines, drunks rooting through dumpsters, and the occasional dreamy snatch of a passing car radio.  
  
    He dozed off earlier, but it was the kind of restless and uncomfortable sleep during which he continued to worry through problems in his head, like muddling through an expanse of dark water. After tossing and turning for a while, he throws off the too-hot blankets and kicks his bare legs out from under his twisted sheets.  
  
    Sighing, he swings his long legs over the edge of the mattress and grabs his laptop from the floor.  
  
    After two failed login attempts, he correctly guesses Zepile’s Netflix password and settles back onto his pillows with the laptop resting on his chest. He pauses, fingers hovering over the keyboard.  
  
    _Kurta Massacre,_ he types into the search bar, biting the inside of his cheek. He hesitates, then hits enter.  
  
    Only one result turns up: a show called Unsolved Killings. It looks like one of those tacky true-crime series, the kind with lots of dramatic re-enactments and sound effects and tearful interviews. Leorio clicks on the episode link and skims through the descriptions.  
  
_Episode 47: THE KURTAN SLAUGHTER_ _  
_ _Join our team of sleuths as we uncover the truth of the horrific Kurtan massacre of 2011, during which the entire Kurtan clan was brutally murdered by a band of thieves for their priceless Scarlet Eyes. Watch as Officer Sculder and Detective Mully travel to the backwoods of Takayama, Japan, to search for clues regarding this mysterious crime._ _  
_  
    He presses play and plugs in his tangled earbuds.  
  
    The episode starts with panorama drone footage of a serene mountain village in Japan. It’s a densely forested place, dotted with ancient stone temples and clear, burbling streams.  
  
    “The town of Takayama has long been a favorite retreat for busy Japanese tourists looking to relax and unwind in the mountains. It’s filled with picturesque temples and sparkling clean hot springs. But what happened on the blood-soaked day of October 6th, 2011, terrified the country for years to come.”  
  
    The scene changes to a grainy black-and-white crime scene photo taken from a Japanese newspaper clipping. It shows a pile of bloodied victims lying in an abandoned temple, and the eyes of every corpse have clearly been gouged out. Leorio hisses in a sharp intake of breath.  
  
    “For years, the Kurtan people lived peacefully in the backwoods of Takayama, protected by the benevolence of the local Buddhist monks who tended to the nearby temples. Similar to the Amish or Mennonite people of the United States, the Kurtans eschewed almost all forms of modern technology and lived off of the grid, forbidding their members from making any contact with the outside world. For the most part, they lived without conflict from the surrounding settlements, except for the occasional run-in with frightened villagers through the centuries who spoke of their strange ‘Scarlet Eyes’, comparing them to folklore demons. All that changed, however, when a band of travelers known as the Phantom Troupe infiltrated the clan.”  
  
    Leorio skips through a section describing all of the other murders connected to the Phantom Troupe; he’s read a couple of Wikipedia articles about them already. He presses play again when the frame shows a man and a woman entering an abandoned temple. They’re both holding cameras and magnifying glasses, and they look excited.  
  
    “As you can see here, Detective Mully, a trace of blood is still evident on the stone floor! If we work carefully, we can extract a sample—”  
  
    Leorio thinks of Kurapika’s trembling hands in the sunset and shuts the laptop with a snap. Suddenly nauseated, he lies back onto his covers and stares up into the darkness.  
  
    These were real people who Kurapika loved. Leorio doesn’t want to see the pictures and take part in the further exploitation of their murders. He doesn’t need all of the gory details. He thinks about how it would feel to see a show like this about Pietro or Senritsu or Zepile, and feels sick with disgust.  
  
    It takes him a long time to fall back asleep, and when he does, his dreams are filled with the eyeless faces of the Kurtan victims. 

* * *

     Palliative care scares Leorio, but the sad truth of that matter is that Pietro is much more comfortable now than he has been for months and months in the hospital. The only goal at the moment is relieving his pain and keeping him relaxed. For a lovely week, he’s back to his old self, smiling and chatting with Leorio just like old times, teasing the nurses, even getting his appetite back enough to have a few bites of rocky road ice cream, his favorite. Leorio stays as late as they let him every night, sitting on the windowsill and talking as Pietro drifts in and out of consciousness.  
  
    Leorio wants to believe that Pietro’s on an upswing, but he knows enough about medicine that these may be what they refer to in terminally ill patients as “the last good days”, the surreal period during which the brutal symptoms of the illness subside, and the patient is back to their old self for a brief moment before the end.  
  
    Whatever the case, through, it’s wonderful to have his friend to himself without the interference of surgeons and new rounds of antibiotics and complicated wounds to treat.  
  
    “Plus,” Leorio reminds Pietro for the dozenth time, “palliative care is reversible, you can start chemo and radiation back up again any time you want to, just say the word, it’s not, like, a one and done deal. Just say whenever you’re ready to start up again.”  
  
    “I don’t want to, though,” Pietro says through a mouthful of of ice cream. “Trust me. This is better.”  
  
    “Yeah,” Leorio says stubbornly, “but still, I’m just saying. Anytime you want. Say the word.”  
  
    “Okay, Leorio. You got it.” 

* * *

    When he’s not at the hospital or working his oddball assortment of part-time jobs, Leorio spends his free hours with Kurapika. To his great surprise, their time together is relaxing and peaceful. They bicker from time to time, but only over things like which pizza place to go to, or the answer to a crossword puzzle that’s driving Kurapika crazy. They’re actually friends now. It’s nice.  
  
    If you’d asked him a year ago, Leorio would have never thought that he’d be spending so much time with a member of the criminal underworld, but then again, Kurapika isn’t exactly the stereotype of a mafia thug. Kurapika knows the name of every single flower they pass, Kurapika likes his coffee with three sugars, Kurapika wears a sparkling ruby earring when he’s in a good mood. He’s nothing at all like the mob gangsters in old movies. Sometimes Leorio forgets that this is the same person who shouted him down over a phone charger and nearly killed an armed would-be mugger with his bare hands, but when Kurapika cocks his head a certain way, his eyes take on a feline glint, and Leorio remembers what he’s capable of.  
  
    By the third week of April, they’ve fallen into a routine. Leorio meets Kurapika at Daily Beans at the end of his shift, and they take off walking though the East Village as night falls and the city lights up with neon. They stop for greasy slices of cheese pizza or glasses of cheap whiskey, laughing and talking about their days. By now, Kurapika knows about Pietro and asks about him often, but he never brings up Leorio’s money problems again.  
  
    Sometimes they sneak into jazz clubs like the Village Vanguard or Smalls to listen to a couple of songs. Kurapika knows an annoying amount about music, always leaning over to whisper busily in Leorio’s ear during the applause. Leorio plays along, acting suitably impressed when Kurapika correctly names some obscure tune or guesses the key of a song. Kurapika _really_ loves being right, and Leorio doesn’t care about jazz. He likes it fine, but what he really likes is when Kurapika is pressed up tightly against him in a crowded bar and has to cup a hand around Leorio’s ear to talk. He’s dizzied by Kurapika’s half-smiles and quick touches and interesting minty scent, totally intoxicated by the glitter of his eyes in the lamplight.  
  
    Other days Kurapika is downcast and silent, and cannot be coaxed into conversation even by his favorite topics (books, art, types of cocktails, the names of flowers). On those days, they go for long walks, Leorio walking at half his normal speed to compensate for how much longer his legs are than Kurapika’s. Leorio doesn’t mind when Kurapika gets this way; he knows enough about grief to recognize when it’s manifesting itself into a particularly bad mood.  
  
    Leorio knows that this thing between them is stronger than friendship, but he has no idea how to take the next step. Kurapika is often mercurial in his moods, alternating between teasing affection and cold indifference within the span of a few hours, and Leorio can’t be sure if he’s imagining the meaningful glances and lingering touches that they share. Kurapika is weird and formal, different from everyone he’s ever met. The usual rules may not even apply, and so Leorio lies awake for hours every night, obsessing over their most recent encounters and every inscrutable text message.  
  
    For the most part, though, it’s a lovely time. The weather grows warm and balmy, soft breezes whispering through the cherry blossoms. The strong April sun brings out a smattering of cinnamon freckles across Kurapika’s sharp nose and high cheekbones. When Leorio is close enough to see them, he wants to trace them with a finger.

   It’s the deepest infatuation he’s ever felt. Just being around Kurapika makes him feel tipsy with happiness.

   But somehow he can’t shake the feeling that every moment of enjoyment with Kurapika is bittersweet; a prelude to darker times to come. The last good days, just like with Pietro. Kurapika still vanishes for days at a time and is cagey and secretive about certain topics. Leorio still doesn’t even know where lives. Although Kurapika is gradually getting better at picking up his phone, Leorio always assumes the worst when he can’t be reached.  
  
    He’s terrified that one day he’ll see something horrible on the news about the Yakuza or the Phantom Troupe or the Scarlet Eyes and that Kurapika will be involved somehow, either thrown in jail or injured or worse. It begins to feel like it’s only a matter of time. 

* * *

    “Leorio!”  
  
    “Mm.”  
  
    “Leoooooorio. Your phone’s ringing off the hook. Wake up.”  
  
    “Mmmm.”  
  
    Leorio rolls over and grabs a pillow to press over his ears. His mattress is so comfortable, and his head hurts. Just as he’s dozing off again, he hears heavy footfalls approaching the bed, and Zepile yanks the pillow away.  
  
    “Leorio! Your phone. Sorry, dude, but it might be. You know. The hospital,” Zepile says apologetically, tossing Leorio his ringing cell phone. Jolting into consciousness, Leorio jerks upright in bed and manages to catch the phone, squinting in the lemony early morning sunlight.  
  
    “Thanks,” he mouths to Zepile as he answers the call, yawning. “Hi, this is Leorio?”  
  
    “How soon could you be at the JFK airport?” Kurapika asks at once, sounding ragged. “Could you make a 10 am flight?”  
  
    Zepile overhears it and throws Leorio an alarmed glance. Leorio motions for him to leave the room, frowning.  
  
    “Uh. Slow down, Kurapika—”  
  
    “I don’t have time, Leorio, I’m sorry.” He’s out of breath like he’s been running. “Will you be able to? I’ll send Daisuke with the car. Only pack enough for two days.”  
  
    “What? What are you talking about? A flight to where? What’s going—”  
  
    “There’s a pair of eyes. Can you help me?”  
  
    Leorio’s heart skips a beat.  
  
    “I’ll be accompanying Neon to Tokyo,” Kurapika continues, “and I have it on good authority that a Troupe member is auctioning off a pair of Kurtan eyes. If you’re willing, it would be a great help if you could accompany me.”  
  
    “Shit. Uh. Kurapika, I—of course I want to help, but—what could I possibly do?”  
  
    “You said—” Kurapika breaks off, taking a deep inhale. When he speaks again, his voice trembles slightly. “You said that you’ve worked in an anatomy lab before. That you’ve...handled human remains. I need someone to verify the authenticity of the eyes before they are purchased.”  
  
    “Verify the...” Leorio echoes, his stomach dropping. “What do you mean?  
  
    “It could be a counterfeit. Occasionally vendors will use the eyes of other animals dyed red. Chimpanzees, usually. Do you think you could tell the difference?”  
  
    “Uh...”  
  
    Leorio wracks his brain, trying to remember the finer points of his anatomy class last year. He could probably figure it out eventually, based on the connective tissues and iris filaments, but to do it under this much pressure, for such an important reason?  
  
    And what’s more, he thinks, Kurapika knows that he’s not even a real doctor. Surely Kurapika, with his access to money and resources, would be able to track down the smartest, most accomplished medical professionals to make absolutely sure. So why is he even asking Leorio, unless there was another reason that he’s not saying?  
  
    He hesitates, but there’s really no choice to make. The answer is clear. He has to help.  
  
    “Yeah. Okay.”  
  
    “...Really?”  
  
    “Yeah,” Leorio nods, “yeah, let me just—you said at 10? What time is it?” He stumbles out of bed, searching for his glasses and wallet and phone charger. “What time’s the car coming? Do I need my passport and ID and—”  
  
    _Pietro_ , he thinks suddenly, guilt seizing his chest.  
  
    “Shit. Kurapika, I—I can’t.” He falls motionless and stands in the middle of the room, phone pressed to his ears with his pants halfway on.  
  
    “I have to go to the hospital, I can’t just—go to Tokyo right now. I’m sorry.”  
  
    There’s a long pause. Leorio closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.  
  
    “Of course. Of course. That’s no problem,” Kurapika says softly. “I understand. I’ve got to get going, then.” He takes a shaky breath. “Thank you for everything, Leorio. You’ve been a good friend.”  
  
    He hangs up without another word.  
  
    Leorio stares at the blank phone screen, anxiety rising in his chest. When he tries calling Kurapika again, it goes straight to voicemail.  
  
    Cursing, Leorio finishes dressing and grabs his backpack. He throws his phone charger, wallet, and a toothbrush into it. He shoves his glasses onto his face and darts out of the apartment, kicking aside doll heads and wedding dresses as Zepile peppers him with questions.  
  
    “Whoa—are you going to the airport? What was that all about? What the hell?”  
  
    “Can’t talk,” Leorio yells from the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. “Call ya later!”  
  
    He races to the subway station and elbows his way onto a crowded train. It’s hot and sunny today, and everything smells like too-strong perfume and rotting sewage and sweat. He rides the train three stops uptown and jogs the three blocks to Daily Beans.  
  
    When Leorio arrives, the huge mustachioed barista (Basher? Baxter?)  is putting a chalkboard menu out on the sidewalk. Leorio skids to a stop in front of the cafe and rests his hands on his knees, panting.  
  
    “Hey. Is. Is Kurapika here? Does he work today?”  
  
    The man looks at Leorio in surprise.  
  
    “What do you want with him?”  
  
    “It’s—it’s important,” Leorio gasps, massaging the stitch in his side. “I—need to talk to him. Is he still here?”  
  
    “It’s Leroy, right?” The man takes a step closer, peering into his face. “Kurapika talks about you. You’re the doctor friend?”  
  
    “Um—yes.”  
  
    “Basho,” the man says, extending a huge paw-like hand. Bemused, Leorio shakes it.  
  
    “Listen, Leroy, Kurapika just took off this morning. He swung by to pick something up, but I think he was on his way to the airport. Tough luck. Try him in a few days, probably. He just takes off sometimes like that.”  
  
    Leorio scrubs his face. “Do you have any other numbers for him? Or—or anything? He’s so hard to track down.”  
  
    “Tell me about it. I do the employee scheduling for this place,” Basho guffaws, clapping Leorio on the back so hard that he stumbles against the sidewalk. “Don’t worry. He’ll turn up!”  
  
    “Well, thanks anyways,” Leorio says dejectedly, but before he can take a step to leave, Basho grabs him by the shoulder.  
  
    “Allow me to leave you with some parting words of wisdom!”  
  
    “Um—” Leorio starts, watching Basho puff up his chest and twirl his mustache, “I don’t really have time for—”  
  
    “An old silent pond,” Basho intones, “a frog jumps into the pond. Splash!”  
  
    He claps his hands for emphasis, making a passing businessman jump and spill his coffee. A nearby pigeon takes flight in a flurry of startled wingbeats.  
  
    “Silence again,” he finishes in a dramatic whisper, staring meaningfully at Leorio.  
  
    _Brooklyn_ , Leorio thinks wonderingly, backing away. _Hipsters are the weirdest._ _  
_  
    “So? What do you think?” Basho asks, looking hopeful. “Did that help?”  
  
    “Uh...” Leorio trails off, backing away. “Well, I’d better go.”  
  
    Leorio sets off towards the hospital, fighting a rising wave of panic. He tries Kurapika’s phone again, but it’s still going straight to voicemail.  
  
    Halfway across the street, he realizes in frustration that it’s too early for visiting hours in the ICU. Sinking onto a dirty bench on the sidewalk, he pulls out his phone and dials Pietro’s number.  
  
    “H’llo?” Pietro’s voice is groggy. “L’rio?”  
  
    “Hey. Sorry, did I wake you up?”  
  
    “It’s fine. Not like I have anything important to do today. What’s going on?”  
  
    “Man,” Leorio starts, running a hand over his head, “I think I’m in over my head with Kurapika.”  
  
    Pietro laughs weakly. “I coulda told you that. What’s up?”  
  
    Leorio gives him a condensed version, rushing through the parts about testing the eyes and the early morning phone call. Pietro grows so quiet that Leorio is afraid that he’s fallen asleep.  
  
    “Yo. You awake?”  
  
    “Yeah, yeah, I’m up.”  
  
    “So, anyways. I’m. Uh. I really don’t know what to do.”  
  
    Pietro pauses to cough for a minute. “Leorio, isn’t it obvious?”  
  
    “Huh?”  
  
    “He wants you to come with him and he’s scared to ask.”  
  
    “...Nah. You think? No, I don’t—”  
  
    “He’s just thinking of an excuse. He wants you to go with him and he’s scared that if he just asks you straight up you’ll say no. So he’s trying to suck up to your doctor ego.”  
  
    “Oh, shut up,” Leorio says vaguely, but his mind is whirring. “You—you think?”  
  
    “Duh.”  
  
    “But—” Leorio starts, adjusting his glasses, “why couldn’t he just say so?”  
  
    “Because you guys are dumb and gay and in love and everything is complicated.”  
  
    “We’re—we’re friends.”  
  
    “And I’m in the hospital for a sore throat. True, but totally missing the point,” Pietro fires back smugly, and Leorio laughs in defeat.  
  
    “Agh! Fine. Fine. You’re so annoying.”  
  
    “What the fuck ever, Paladibutt. So now what? You gonna fly to Japan?”  
  
    Leorio throws up his hands. “I mean, I already told him I can’t go. He said the car was already on its way, and that was like an hour ago. I’m sure I missed the flight already.”  
  
    “So? They only got one flight from New York to Japan a day? Yeah right.”  
  
    “I can’t just...” Leorio says, chewing on a hangnail. “I mean, what if something happens with...with you?”  
  
    “Oh for Christ’s sake. You know you gotta go help this guy out. Nobody should have to see their dead family’s eyeballs by themselves. That is some seriously fucked up shit,” Pietro wheezes. “You know what you gotta do. Go do it. I’ll be fine for a couple of days. Go live your life and get off my dick.”  
  
    “But...”  
  
    “Are you seriously whining to me about whether or not you’re going to Japan? Dude, I’d be excited if I could go to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Quit complaining. Go to frickin’ Tokyo and make out with your hot mafia dude.”  
  
    Leorio’s eyes are watering, and he can’t figure out if he wants to laugh or cry. He does a little bit of both, closing his eyes and clutching the phone tightly to his cheek.  
  
    “Pietro...”  
  
    “They’re gonna come suction my lungs out soon, I gotta go.”  
  
    “Okay. Um. Please just—keep me posted, okay? I’ll be back in three days.”  
  
    “Yeah. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. Take pictures. Bring me an Ichiro baseball card.”  
  
    “Okay. Okay. Pietro—thank you.”  
  
    “You too, Leorio. Hey, sorry, the nurse is here. Talk to you later, bud.”  
  
    The line goes dead. Leorio stands up, feeling dizzy, and hails the first yellow cab that passes.  
  
    “Where to?”  
  
    The driver is an older Indian man. He meets Leorio’s eyes in the rear view mirror expectantly.  
  
    Leorio takes a deep breath.  
  
    “Uh—the airport, please. JFK.”    
  
    The driver nods. As the car accelerates, Leorio takes out his cell phone and Googles “flights JFK to Tokyo today”. There’s one leaving at 11:27 am; it’s 8:47 now. He’ll make it if he really hurries. It costs $2,719 and takes fifteen hours.  
  
    _Holy shit. Am I really doing this?_ _  
_  
    As the cab drives through Manhattan, Leorio types in his credit card information and buys the ticket.  
  
    He has the sense that the situation has spiraled completely out of his control. In about twenty hours, he’ll be halfway across the world with Kurapika.


	3. sakura lullaby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the hotel I send them to (the Tokyo Park Hyatt) is the same one from the movie Lost In Translation, because it’s real purdy

    Fifteen hours is a long time.  
  
    As the jetliner cruises over the endless black Pacific Ocean far below, Leorio thinks about all of the other things he’d rather do for fifteen hours than sit in the same cramped seat, his knees practically folded into his chest, surrounded by twenty screaming babies. He thinks longingly of sitting in regular-sized chairs or lying in normal beds; even the subway starts to sound spacious and relaxing.  
  
    He was so freaked out on his way to the airport that he barely registered going through security and waiting at the gate. All he has with him in way of luggage is his backpack. He didn’t think to bring headphones or a book, so for the past seven hours, he’s been watching movies silently with the subtitles on. He loses track of how many he’s watched around the fourth or fifth one; currently he’s halfway through some re-run of a buddy cop show. When a culprit gets shot onscreen and blood splatters everywhere, Leorio quickly switches the screen a golf channel, not wanting to think about guns, or blood, or people getting hurt or killed.  
  
    Opening his almost-dead cell phone, he looks at the last text thread with Kurapika, where they were talking about their favorite kinds of red wine and joking about Zepile’s art projects.  
  
    _Where are you? What are you doing? Are you okay?_ _  
_  
    Clenching his jaw, Leorio looks out the window at the vast expanse of black water below. The first stars glimmer faintly in the distance, and he wonders if night has fallen in Japan. Maybe Kurapika is looking at the same stars. The thought is so cliche that he almost laughs at himself. He thinks the pressure of the cabin is making him feel a little loopy; that, or the two glasses of red wine he downed to quell his stifling anxiety during the first hour of the flight.  
  
    An hour before landing, the flight attendants turn on the cabin lights to simulate morning and serve another meal. Despite his fear and worry, Leorio is intrigued to find that his breakfast is a type of rice congee with mushrooms and scallions. Hearing the flight attendants speak melodious Japanese over the intercom makes his pulse quicken with excitement. The only time he ever left the country was to go to Italy with his uncle in fourth grade, and he barely remembers it.  
  
    When the flight attendants pass around Japanese customs forms, Leorio experiences another wave of panic; he has no idea what to put for his place of residence in Japan. When his seatmate finishes his own form and becomes engrossed in a Korean soap opera on his laptop, Leorio sneaks a peek at the hotel address he’s written down. He copies it onto his own form, praying that he won’t be interrogated about it. He completely forgot about customs.  
  
    Just when Leorio thinks he can’t stand another minute of flying, the plane descends through a thick layer of clouds. The land below is lush and green, but the sprawling buildings of Tokyo are so tightly packed that it makes New York look like a ghost town.  
  
    Once they land, it takes another thirty minutes to empty out the densely packed plane. Leorio turns on his phone and jiggles his legs in anticipation, desperate to get off. He notices that people seem much more polite. Nobody is cutting in line to get their bags or pushing past one another, and everyone’s voices are hushed. Finally, finally, it’s his turn to step onto the jet bridge.  
  
    There’s another long line at customs, but Leorio is too full of nervous anticipation to care. He clutches his customs card and stares around, unabashedly wide-eyed and curious.  
  
    Everything is so different! The airport employees are all wearing perfectly matching blue uniforms with immaculate white gloves, and the airport itself is spotlessly clean. Everyone is really good at standing in line. Soft Muzak plays from hidden speakers. A cheerful cartoon sign explains that it’s forbidden for foreigners to export poisonous blowfish and shark fin out of the country upon their departure.  
  
    _I’m not in Kansas anymore,_ Leorio thinks, shuffling forward in line. Many of Kurapika’s idiosyncrasies are starting to making sense. No wonder he’s so out of place in New York when he grew up in a place like this.  
  
    His phone doesn’t have service here; another problem he didn’t foresee. It takes a few minutes to figure out how to log on to the Haneda Airport wifi, but when he does, a text from Kurapika comes dinging in. Heart pounding, Leorio calls Kurapika before even bothering to read the text, instantly forgetting that he doesn’t have service. The phone emits a piercing electronic bleep before telling him something sternly in Japanese. He groans in frustration, earning a scandalized look from the young Japanese woman next to him in line. He’ll have to figure out how to use a pay phone somehow. He opens the text instead and reads it quickly.  
  
    _Hello, Leorio. I saw your missed calls. I’m already in Tokyo. Please don’t worry on my behalf. I’ll be back shortly. I hope that everything is all right with Pietro. Regards, Kurapika_ _  
_  
    “Regards?” Leorio says aloud. “Regards? You jerk,” he grumbles. “Regards, my ass.”  
  
    A security guard barks something at him, pointing at a sign with a picture of a cell phone with a frowny face painted over it.  
  
    “Ah! My bad,” Leorio apologizes, immediately pocketing the phone. He’s only been here for ten minutes and he’s already screwing up. The guard nods and gestures for him to step up to the next customs agent.  
  
    Sweating, Leorio practices his speech in his head as the customs officer checks his passport and ticket. Here for vacation, staying in Tokyo at the...uh...what was the name of the hotel he wrote down? He winces and crosses his fingers in his pocket, but to his immense relief, the officer merely stamps his passport and waves him through without another word.  
  
    The arrivals lobby is packed. Numerous loudspeakers are emitting high-pitched female voices, and there are dozens of counters to purchase train tickets and rent cars. The air smells interestingly like soy sauce and strong green tea. Leorio weaves through the throngs of passengers until he locates a pay phone booth, starting to dial Kurapika’s number before he realizes that he doesn’t have a single cent of Japanese money. Luckily, someone left a little pile of 5 yen coins in his booth. Figuring it’s worth a shot, Leorio inserts them all and dials.  
  
    The phone rings for so long that he’s convinced that it won’t work at all, but after an interminably long wait, the line picks up, and it’s Kurapika’s voice, staticky but there.  
  
    “Hello?”  
  
    “Kurapika,” Leorio starts, coiling the phone cord around his hand. “Um.”  
  
    Through his haze of overstimulated, jet-lagged craziness, it begins to occur to Leorio that he may be losing his mind.  
  
    He’s mortified; he made a huge mistake by coming here, he overstepped a boundary in a huge, irrevocable way. What the hell is he doing? He met Kurapika a month ago. This is stupid.

    Kurapika clears his throat.   
  
    “What number are you calling from?”  
  
    “I’m—I’m here,” he says, and falls silent.  
  
    “This is a Japanese number.”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    Silence. Leorio closes his eyes, expecting the worst.  
  
    Kurapika says nothing in reply, breathing into the other line for a moment.  
  
    “Narita or Haneda?”  
  
    “...What?”  
  
    “Well, which airport? I assume you’re in Tokyo. Which airport? There are two.”  
  
    “Oh,” Leorio says, swallowing, “uh, Haneda, I think.”  
  
    “Okay. Be ready outside of the Delta arrivals gate in twenty minutes.”  
  
    “Uh.”  
  
    “Are you jet lagged? You’re never this quiet,” Kurapika says, and there’s a note of teasing in his voice. “Zone 3. Drink some water. The driver will be coming in a—”  
  
    The call cuts off, and a dial tone buzzes in Leorio’s ears. He must not have put enough money in.  
  
    As though he’s moving in a dream, he floats through the lobby out onto the curb to wait for whatever it is that Kurapika is sending.  
  
    Outside, the night air smells fresh and wildly foreign. Even seeing the signs in Japanese for the bus routes and taxi loading rules sends a thrill of excitement through Leorio’s veins.  
  
    In another ten minutes a black Mercedes pulls up to the curb and holds up a typed sign reading LEORIO PARADIKNIGHT. Leorio waves at the uniformed driver and hops in the backseat, settling into the plush seats as the driver nods curtly and accelerates. It’s starting to hit him how exhausted he is, but as the car pulls soundlessly onto the freeway, his heart leaps into his throat.  
  
    “Ohmygodohmygod,” he croaks, because it looks like the car is about to drive directly into oncoming traffic. “Shit!”

    He grabs onto the backseat handle and braces for impact. The driver gives him a polite smile in the rear view mirror, clearly not understanding. He merges calmly into the farthest right lane of the freeway and shifts the car into a purring high gear. High rises and billboards whizz by in a neon blur.  
  
    Oh. They drove on the wrong side of the road here. Leorio sinks back down, massaging his chest.  
  
    Kurapika is waiting on the street when the Mercedes pulls up to the Park Hyatt hotel. It’s an enormous high rise building stretching into the sky. Leorio’s neck hurts just from looking up at it. It’s almost midnight, but the neighborhood around them is bustling with activity. Street vendors hawk phone cases and takeout food. Well-dressed couples stroll arm-in-arm down the streets, laughing and talking. Everything is vivid and colorful and overwhelming. The sidewalks are dotted with blooming cherry trees, and the feathery pink blossoms glow against the night sky.

  
    Kurapika makes an odd jerky movement in his direction, as though he wants to reach for Leorio but decides against it at the last minute. He twists his hands together and stares up at him instead, his wide eyes reflecting the streetlights. He’s wearing his black bodyguard suit and a crisp white shirt. Leorio feels like a schlump in comparison, disheveled from the plane in his sweatshirt and jeans.  
  
    “Hi,” Leorio offers, rubbing the back of his neck. “Um.”  
  
    “What are you doing here?” Kurapika says. “How did you...did you buy a flight? How did you get here? Why are you here?”  
  
    “You asked me to come. So I did.”  
  
    “Yes, but—Leorio, what about Pietro? I wasn’t thinking when I asked. Will he—will he be all right?”  
  
    “He wanted me to go. I talked to him. It’s all right.”  
  
    “Oh,” Kurapika says, looking agitated. He bounces on the balls of his feet for a moment, not meeting Leorio’s eyes. “Well, you’d better come inside.”  
  
    Leorio follows him in through a gleaming lobby and down a long hallway lit with softly glowing sconces. A fountain burbles somewhere in the distance. Employees bow silently to them as they pass. Leorio bows in return until Kurapika tells him to stop.  
  
    Once they’re inside the velvet-paneled elevator going up to floor 27, Leorio turns to face Kurapika.  
  
    “Hey. Why did you ask me to come?”  
  
    “What?”  
  
    “Is it really because of the eyes?”  
  
    “I told you,” Kurapika says briskly, examining his cuff link with sudden interest, “I need to verify the authenticity of the eyes once I obtain them. To make sure that they are indeed the eyes of my clan, and not a—”  
  
    “Kurapika,” Leorio interrupts, “why didn’t you just say you wanted me to come?”  
  
    “I don’t—”  
  
    “If you had just said that in the first place, I would have jumped in that car immediately.  I want to help you, Kurapika, I’m your friend. I don’t want you to go through this alone.”  
  
    “I need someone with medical experience, so I thought that your presence would make everything go more smoothly.”

    He won’t meet Leorio’s eyes. The elevator arrives on the 27th floor with a ding. When the doors open, Kurapika strides out at once and sets off down the long hallway. He takes a key card out of his pocket and opens the door, waiting for Leorio to hurry behind him.  
  
    “Here’s the room.”  
  
    _Whoa_ .  
  
    Leorio is rendered temporarily speechless when he walks inside. It’s the fanciest hotel room he’s ever been inside in his life. The far wall has enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, and Tokyo sprawls before them like a glittering constellation. There’s a gigantic flat-screen television mounted to the wall, a leather armchair and mahogany desk, and—  
  
    “You can take the bed,” Kurapika says, the tips of his ears going bright pink. “I’ll call down for a cot.”  
  
    Leorio laughs nervously.  
  
    “Oh. Nah. C’mon. You’re the one who has to, like...guard people? What do you do, exactly?”  
  
    “I’m a bodyguard, yes,” Kurapika mumbles, adjusting his collar.  
  
    “Heh. Well. Let me take the cot, is what I’m saying.”  
  
    Kurapika is already speaking Japanese into the phone by the giant bed. Leorio deposits his backpack onto the floor and walks across the carpet to look out the window. Tokyo goes on and on and on and on. It makes New York seem practically tiny by comparison.

    Leorio amuses himself for a moment by thinking about how, technically, he’s looking at literally thousands of people who are eating dinner, or having sex, or taking a shit, or birthing a child, or sharing their first kiss, and so on. He presses his forehead against the cold glass of the window, marveling at the sheer size of the city and feeling pleasantly dizzy.  
  
    “They’ll bring it up shortly,” Kurapika is saying, busying himself with a coffee maker on the desk. He plugs it in, and after a minute the room fills with the aroma of rich espresso.  
  
    “Who you callin shortly?” Leorio attempts, and Kurapika gives him a blank look.  
  
    “What? I’m talking about the cot.”  
  
    “I know.”  
  
    “They’re bringing it up from the—”  
  
    “It’s a—it’s a joke,” Leorio mutters. He takes off his sweatshirt, yawning and stretching. “Never mind. Anyways. So, um. What’s the plan? Are you having coffee right now?”  
  
    “I’m so jet-lagged that I may as well stay up and work,” Kurapika says with a shrug, pouring himself a mug. “You can sleep, of course, unless you’d like a cup?”  
  
    “Oh. Sure. I’ll have some. Smells good.”  
  
    Kurapika pours him the rest of the pot, and they take their mugs and perch on the windowsill, gazing out at the breathtaking view. With a pang, Leorio thinks of how he always sits on the windowsill in Pietro’s hospital room. As Kurapika is getting settled, Leorio fires off a text to Pietro, telling him that he arrived safely and asking him how he’s doing.  
  
    “So,” Kurapika says, “a few things.” He takes a long sip of coffee. “Firstly, while we’re here, it’s safest if you pretend that you’re a regular tourist.”  
  
    “Yeah, I figured. Told em on my customs form I was going on vacation in Tokyo.”  
  
    Kurapika nods. “Right, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Secondly, unless I tell you otherwise, you don’t know me. Don’t walk near me, don’t enter and exit rooms at the same time as me, and don’t speak to me unless it’s under the guise of an interaction between strangers.”  
  
    “Oh. Uh. Okay.” Leorio drinks some coffee, drumming his fingers against the mug. “So...like, I can pretend I’m a waiter? Or something?”  
  
    “Something like that. I trust your judgement.”  
  
    “You probably shouldn’t,” Leorio says honestly. Kurapika looks aghast.  
  
    “Leorio! Don’t say that now.”  
  
    “Anyways.”  
  
    Over two more cups of coffee, Kurapika details the plan for the following day. The next morning, he will leave the hotel with Neon Nostrade and her junior bodyguards. They’ll drive in the Mercedes to the Mainichi Auction House, where Kurapika will escort Neon into the main hall, while the other bodyguards, Squala and Linssen, wait outside the building. If Kurapika gives the signal (a call to the hotel room that only rings once), Leorio will take a cab to the auction house, and Linssen will escort him inside.  
  
    “And then what?”  
  
    “You’ll be taken into a secured room with the eyes. Linssen will wait outside. I think we can guarantee ten minutes, if we’re lucky. I’ll have sanitized tools prepared for you. You’ll need to open the jar, inspect the eyes, re-seal it, and leave. If anyone questions you, you’ll answer in English that you’re a tourist here to see the cherry blossoms who got lost looking for the Tsujiki fish market.”  
  
    “Ten minutes.”  
  
    “Will that be enough?”  
  
    Leorio gulps. “I guess so. What happens if I get caught?”  
  
    “You won’t,” Kurapika reassures him. “This should be a simple transaction.”

    “What if you see the...the guy from the troupe? What will you do?”

    Kurapika’s gaze is steady. “I’ll deal with him.”

    He finishes his coffee and hops down from the window sill, stretching his arms overhead. His white shirt comes untucked from his pants and reveals a swath of his pale stomach. Leorio looks away, his face feeling hot.  
  
    “Mind if I take a shower?”  
  
    Kurapika shakes his head, staring out the window. “All yours. Careful, the water’s very hot here.”  
  
    It takes Leorio a long time to figure out the unfamiliar nozzles in the shower, and once he gets the water going (boiling hot and smelling slightly of sulphur), he’s dismayed to learn that Japanese showers are designed for people who are about two feet shorter than him. He has to hunch down awkwardly to wash his hair.  
  
    When he finishes showering, he doesn’t want to put his dirty clothes from the plane back on, and instead wears a cotton robe hanging in the closet. It barely covers his knees, but the fabric is light and airy. Pietro and Zepile would never let him hear the end of it if they saw him wearing it. He ties it securely and pads out of the bathroom to see Kurapika neatly tucked into the cot in the corner. He’s reading his mother’s book of Shakespeare sonnets again. The cot is clearly designed for a toddler, and Kurapika’s legs dangle over the edge.  
  
    “That bed is stupid, Kurapika. You don’t need to sleep in it,” Leorio says. “Seriously, let me take it.”  
  
     Kurapika folds in his knees primly and ignores Leorio.  
  
    “I set the alarm for 7 am tomorrow morning. You don’t need to be up that early, but I think I’ll try to rest.” He sets his book aside and rolls over to face the wall. “Goodnight, Leorio.”  
  
    Leorio sits on the edge of the huge bed and clicks off the lamp. He doesn’t feel tired in the slightest, but he gets under the covers anyways, staring out the window at the infinite city sprawl. Kurapika tosses and turns several times, clearly uncomfortable in the small bed, before falling still with a sigh. Gradually, his breathing evens out.  
  
    As Kurapika sleeps, Leorio watches the rise and fall of his narrow chest underneath the thin cotton blankets. He’s wide awake, so he sends an email to Pietro’s team of nurses with the name of the hotel and the room he’s staying in, just in case they need to reach him while he’s here and his phone doesn’t work. Hopefully it won’t be necessary, but it gives him some peace of mind.  
  
    After another forty minutes of trying unsuccessfully to sleep, Leorio swings his long legs out of bed and tiptoes around the room, exploring the unfamiliar gadgets and poking around in the drawers. He reads a pamphlet about Mount Fuji and peruses the room service menu with interest (1200 yen for dinner sounds hideously expensive, but he doesn’t know the conversion rate, so maybe it was a good deal), and brushes his hands over a blue silk kimono hanging in the closet. When he accidentally knocks over a wooden bookend with a clatter, Kurapika raises his head to squint blearily at him for a second before burrowing deeper into the blankets with a sigh. Leorio takes it as a sign that he should try to rest.  
  
    When he gets back into the gigantic cushiony bed, he feels briefly guilty that Kurapika is squashed into the cot before he’s overtaken by a wave of leaden fatigue. His limbs sink into the feather-down mattress like anchors. Within another minute, he falls asleep and feels nothing at all.

* * *

   “Are you awake?” 

  
    Leorio opens his eyes to see Kurapika hovering over him, shaking his shoulder.  
  
    He’s already dressed in his black bodyguard suit, and his hair is slicked back and combed neatly to one side. Leorio has never seen him look so professional. He smells different today, too; instead of his normal minty shampoo scent, he’s wearing some kind of spicy, earthy cologne. He’s all sharp edges and dark eyes.  
  
    Still half-asleep, Leorio drinks in the sight of him for a minute. He wants to reach his arms up around Kurapika and pull him down to lie on top of him in bed. His body responds hungrily to the idea.

    “Leorio, I need to go,” Kurapika says again, sounding harried. He straightens up and picks a piece of invisible lint off of his blazer. “Remember, if the hotel phone rings just once—”  
  
    “That’s the signal,” Leorio finishes, sitting up in bed and yawning. “I know.”  
  
    “Yes. Okay. I have to go get Neon. Do you remember the plan?”  
  
    “I do,” Leorio promises. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and strategically places a pillow over his lap to conceal any seismic activity down there. “I remember. If you give me the signal, I take a cab to the auction place—”  
  
    “The Mainichi Auction house!”  
  
    “Right,” Leorio continues, “that place, and then...Linssen takes me in, and I get ten minutes.”  
  
    Kurapika looks in the mirror and ties a perfect Windsor knot in his black silk tie. He catches Leorio’s eye in the reflection and nods curtly.  
  
    “Yes. Exactly.”  
  
    “Got it.”  
  
    Grabbing a black duffel bag from his suitcase, Kurapika heads for the door. When he pauses to look back, his features are as intense as Leorio has ever seen them.  
  
    “Thank you, Leorio. I don’t take this lightly.”  
  
    “Oh. Yeah. Of course,” Leorio says, clutching the pillow. “Happy to help. Well...”  
  
    “See you later, then,” Kurapika says, opening the door and slipping out soundlessly.

* * *

 

   Three hours pass. If the situation weren’t so serious, Leorio would be pissed about being stuck in a hotel room all day when he’s in Japan for the first time ever. As it is, though, he paces the room like a caged bear, jumping at the slightest sounds and nervously checking the time. As the minutes pass, he tries to picture what Kurapika and Neon are up to.

   Were they sitting in the auction house now? What other grotesque items were being sold? Would Kurapika be all right, being forced to see the eyeballs of someone he knew? How fucked up was Neon that she wanted to own something like that? 

    To pass the time, he fills up the bathtub and soaks in it for a while. It’s unlike any bathtub he’s ever been in. It’s very narrow and very deep. The water goes up to his neck, but he has to fold himself almost into fetal position to fit his long legs inside the tub. This country was made for much smaller people.  
  
    At noon he gets hungry and eats three sesame-coated rice crackers from the mini bar, hoping that it won’t cost an astronomical sum. He looks longingly at the bottle of sake in the fridge, but decides against it for obvious reasons.  
  
    There’s an incredible view of Mount Fuji from the room. For an hour or two, Leorio lies on his stomach on the bed and just watches the way the the sunlight and shadows play across the mountain’s snowy surface; it’s almost like he’s in a trance. Perhaps it’s the jet lag kicking in.  
  
    By 3 in the afternoon, Leorio is half-dozing in the armchair when the phone rings, just one shrill bleep, before falling silent. He leaps out of the chair immediately, nerves zinging with adrenaline. It’s the signal.  
  
    _Okay, Paladiknight,_ he thinks grimly, _don’t fuck this up._

* * *

   Japanese cabs are as immaculate and efficient as everything else in the country so far, but Leorio is too nervous to pay attention to the gleaming car and the uniformed driver. He barely registers the scenery of Tokyo flashing by, going over Kurapika’s instructions in his head as they sit in traffic and weave through complicated intersections. After about a thirty minute drive though the city, the cab driver comes to a stop and waits politely as Leorio scrambles to deposit the correct number of unfamiliar coins into his white-gloved hands. The coins are all different shapes and sizes, and some of them are so light that they feel like Monopoly money.  
  
    The Mainichi Auction House is a bland, nondescript office building; Leorio had expected it to be more opulent, somehow. A thin Chinese man is waiting outside for him, and Leorio recognizes him as the bodyguard named Linssen from the photo that Kurapika showed him last night. They walk into the chilly air-conditioned lobby together. Leorio can hear the muffled sounds of a crowd through the walls.

   “How’s it going?” Leorio mutters as they head for the elevators. “Is, uh. Is everything. Ready to go?”  
  
    Linssen doesn’t speak to Leorio until the elevator has descended into a dank basement. They step into a dark hallway, and Leorio follows him down a twisting maze of turns that leads to a small broom closet.  
  
    “Here’s where you’ll be inspecting the purchase,” Linssen says quietly, unlocking the door. Leorio gulps.  
  
    When they step inside the closet, Linssen turns on a harsh overhead light to reveal an overturned crate with several items lying atop it: a jar of cloudy liquid about the size of a paint can, a set of surgical tools, a metal pan, and a pair of latex gloves.  
  
    “I’ll knock on the door in ten minutes. If you can’t complete the task by then, you are to leave the way you came and speak to no one on your way out. We don’t have a lot of time before the auctioneers notice that the item is gone.”  
  
    Leorio nods fervently. “Yeah. Got it.”  
  
    “All right. Good luck,” Linssen says, offering a faint smile. “See you in ten minutes.”  
  
    Linssen closes the door, and Leorio is alone in the closet.  
  
    He walks slowly towards the jar. From the door, he could only see cloudy formaldehyde, but as he approaches, he sees two eyeballs bobbing in the liquid, trailing bloodied filaments of cartilage. Their irises are a pure scarlet. His stomach lurches.  
  
    Leorio has dissected eyeballs before in school, but those were taken from the bodies of patients who donated their bodies for science. Hopefully, at least.  
  
    But he’s never been around the remains of someone who was murdered. Even the color of the irises seems to emanate rage and pain. For the first time in his life, Leorio understands wanting to hurt someone. He wants to hurt whoever did this to Kurapika’s family.  
  
    He shakes his head to clear it; he doesn’t have time to waste right now. If he wants to be useful to Kurapika, he needs to work quickly. Leorio pulls on the latex gloves with a snap and twists open the lid of the jar. The smell hits him like a brick wall, making his nose and eyes run. It smells like death.  
  
    Before he can overthink it, he reaches into the unnaturally cold liquid and fishes out the two eyeballs. He places them onto the tray with as much tenderness as he would use to handle a small wounded creature, like the sparrows that sometimes flew into his apartment window and had the wind knocked out of them.  
  
    He inspects them quickly but thoroughly, noting the musculature of the tendons and the shape and size of the pupils, the outline of the iris, and the coloration of the whites. There’s no doubt about it: these are human eyes.  
  
    Leorio is heartsick, but as he’s replacing the eyes into the liquid he can’t help but notice an interesting deformity to one of the eyes: a case of heterochromia iridum, which was a fancy way to say that the iris was two different colors. He wonders if he should mention it. 

    There’s a knock on the door.   
  
    “Done,” Leorio calls, replacing the lid, and Linssen pokes his head through the door. When their eyes meet, Leorio nods wordlessly and stands to leave, tossing his wet gloves in a garbage can on the way out. His stomach is churning.  
  
    “Thank you,” Linssen mouths after him, hurrying in to collect the jar and clean up the closet.  
  
    Leorio escapes the auction house without any interference and hurries back outside. The smell of the formaldehyde is clinging to his nose and hands. He walks briskly for a couple of blocks until he’s on a quiet wooded avenue with no cars around, and bends over to puke up a stream of sour-tasting bile, so nauseous he can barely stand.  
  
    Once his stomach is emptied, he wipes his mouth on his sleeve and walks back towards the busy street to hail a cab.

* * *

 

    The rest of the afternoon and evening is uneventful. Leorio stays in the hotel room, mindlessly clicking through channels to watch snippets of overstimulating Japanese game shows and black-and-white samurai dramas. He takes another bath, but he can’t remove the smell of formaldehyde from his hands.  
  
    Kurapika had said this morning that he would be back late, but Leorio can’t stop himself from checking the clock every ten seconds and jumping hopefully at every scuffle in the hallway, feeling like a lonesome puppy waiting for his owner to return.  
  
    Around sunset, he calls down to the lobby to make sure that nobody from the hospital left a message while he was out. It takes a few different employees to get the translation right, but they all seem agree that nobody called for Mister Paradiknight all day. At least, that’s what Leorio thinks they said. It’s a bit hard to understand their accents.  
  
    At midnight, Kurapika returns, lugging the black duffel bag. His tie is undone around his neck, and his face is gaunt with exhaustion. He carefully settles the bag back into his suitcase before sitting on the windowsill. He pours himself a cup of cold coffee without a word.  
  
    Leorio freezes and mutes the television, unsure if he should move or say anything. He can feel the tension radiating off of Kurapika from here. Kurapika stares blankly out at the dark city, sipping his coffee. He’s hunched over himself, arms folded protectively across his chest.  
  
    “Hey,” Leorio tries after a half an hour. His voice is raspy from disuse. “Sleep in the bed, okay? I’ll take the cot.”  
  
    “Okay,” Kurapika says. “Fine.  You don’t...have to,” he adds, biting a nail.  
  
    “No, really, you take it.”  
  
    “We can share,” Kurapika says in an emotionless voice. “It doesn’t matter.”  
  
    He continues his vigil in the the windowsill as Leorio quietly goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face. On his way back to bed, he turns off the lights and walks over to the window to brush his hand against Kurapika’s tightly-wound shoulder.  
  
    “Hey. Get some sleep.”  
  
    Kurapika stands robotically and allows Leorio to steer him towards the bed. After gently removing Kurapika’s shoes and blazer, Leorio flings back the down comforter and waits until Kurapika lies underneath it to tuck it around his chin and ears. Once he’s settled, Leorio walks around to the other side of the bed and slides under the blankets himself.  
  
    The bed is so enormous that there’s about two feet of empty space between them. They lie in the darkness without talking for several minutes.  
  
    Leorio can feel it every time when Kurapika shifts his weight slightly on the mattress. If he concentrates, he thinks he can almost feel the warmth emanating off of Kurapika’s skin.  
  
    “Those are my mother’s eyes,” Kurapika says after a long pause. “She had the two-toned iris.”  
  
    Leorio closes his eyes.  
  
    “I...wondered about that.”  
  
    Leorio rolls over to face Kurapika. His profile is illuminated by the moonlight, and his long lashes cast spidery shadows across his freckled cheeks.   
  
    “I couldn’t do it myself,” Kurapika continues, “so that’s why I asked you. I trust you.”  
  
    “Oh, honey,” Leorio says, heartbroken.

    Kurapika blinks, and a single tear rolls down his face. When Leorio reaches across the mattress to touch his cheek, Kurapika turns away from him.   
  
    “I’m tired.”  
  
    Leorio retracts his hand at once, nodding.

    “Y-yeah. Me too. Of course.”

* * *

 

    When the phone rings in the middle of the night, Leorio jerks awake, thinking that it must be Kurapika with the signal to get in the cab again, but he’s confused to find Kurapika asleep in bed next to him, hair mussed over the pillow. Rubbing his eyes, Leorio grabs the shrieking phone and tries to remember what the hell is going on. According to the alarm clock on the nightstand, it’s 3:24 am. Kurapika tosses in his sleep and throws an arm over his eyes.  
  
    “Is this Leorio Paladiknight?”  
  
    The voice is brusque and very American, and Leorio struggles to place it.  
  
    “Yeah. This is him. Sorry, who is this?”  
  
    “Hello, Leorio. This is Doctor Carroll, from Mount Sinai. I’m calling about your friend Pietro. He has you down as his emergency contact.”  
  
    _No. No. Not yet. Not now._ _  
_  
    “Did...did something happen?” His chest is constricting with panic. “What’s going on?”  
  
    Doctor Carroll heaves a long sigh.  
  
    “Are you sitting down?”

* * *

 

    Leorio has no idea how he makes it back to the airport, or through security, or onto the plane back to New York. His last clear memory is of shaking a sleepy Kurapika awake and giving him a rushed explanation of the situation before grabbing his backpack and tearing through the hotel lobby to hail a cab.  
  
    Pietro took a turn for the worse yesterday. The tumors in his lungs became too much for his fragile body to bear, and his organs started shutting down. He’s in a coma. Doctor Carroll explained to Leorio that it could be a matter of hours or months, but that it was unlikely that Pietro would wake up again.  
  
    As the plane thrums back over the black Pacific Ocean, Leorio experiences a curiously detached sense of relief. The thing that he’s been fearing all of this time finally happened.  
  
    He got the phone call. The worst has arrived. There’s nothing else to dread. The last good days are over.


	4. i’ll remember april

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry :(

   There’s no time to call Zepile for a ride, so Leorio drags his suitcase out to the curb and waves down a yellow taxi. It’s just before dawn, and the airport is already busy. Sleepy passengers queue up at ticket counters. Uniformed airport employees mill around on the sidewalk while they finish paper cups of deli coffee.  
  
    Leorio closes his eyes and breathes in a gulp of fresh air. It’s colder here than it was in Tokyo, and after almost twenty-four hours of traveling, the morning breeze feels slick and cool against his skin.  
  
    When a cab driver pulls up to the curb and beckons towards Leorio, he throws his backpack into the trunk and clambers into the backseat. The driver catches his eye in the rear view mirror, raising his eyebrows.  
  
    “Where to?”  
  
    “Mount Sinai. First and 16th,” Leorio replies automatically. The driver nods and starts the engine, tuning the crackly radio to last night’s Yankees game. Leorio is thankful for the absence of small talk.  
  
    The sun is rising. Manhattan is bathed in a blinding sheen of gold. Leorio squints and holds up a hand to shield his eyes from the glare as they approach the city.

  If he thinks about it for a fraction of a second, he won’t be able to carry on. Maybe it’s good that he’s so jet lagged and disoriented. It’s easy to let his mind go blank. There’s a sick knot of tension in the pit of his stomach. His mouth starts to taste metallic and sour, like he’s going to throw up, so he rolls down the window and sticks his face into the wind like a dog. The cab driver throws him a bemused glance in the mirror but says nothing, merely turning up the volume of the radio.  
  
    It’s 7:14 am here, which means it’s 8:14 pm in Japan. Kurapika is probably having dinner around now. Leorio imagines him tucked into a wooden booth somewhere, ordering a mug of sake and primly picking the bones out of a piece of fish, but somehow he can’t quite picture his face. He sees Kurapika’s golden hair shimmering in the lamplight, the severe cut of his black blazer and pristine white cuffs of his Armani shirt, the glitter of his red earring against his neck, but he can’t summon up the playful quirk of his lips or the color of his dark eyes. The night in Tokyo (last night? Two nights ago? Leorio can’t do the math) feels like a month ago already. It feels like a scene from someone else’s life. Like something out of a dream. Leorio can’t think about that now.  
  
    He must have dozed off for a while, because the cab driver is clearing his throat and the car is idling on the curb in front of the hospital. An ambulance screams past them, sirens blaring and lights flashing.  
  
    “This all right? I don’t wanna go into the parking garage,” the cab driver asks, turning around to hand Leorio a card reader machine.  
  
    “Oh. Shit. Yeah,” Leorio mumbles, fishing through his backpack for his credit card. He doesn’t bother looking at the price. It doesn’t matter at this point. The card is already maxed out. He hands the machine back to the cab driver along with a few crumpled bills.  
  
    “Thanks, man,” the driver says, popping the trunk. “Have a good one.”  
  
    Leorio takes his backpack and walks inside.  
  
    His feet take him to Pietro’s floor. He’s walked this route so many times. His backpack starts to feel heavy, so he sticks it behind a potted plant in the visitor waiting room. It doesn’t really matter if it gets stolen. There’s nothing important in it. It doesn’t matter. He reaches the ICU and glides past the nurses stations towards Pietro’s room.  
  
    Someone he knows that he’ll never come this way again, and he feels oddly tender towards everything that he passes. He makes a note of each familiar landmark, his eyes alighting on the dingy vending machines, the bad landscape paintings, the determinedly cheerful bulletin boards. Everything feels gentle and dear to him. He walks slowly, footsteps echoing in the tiled hallway.  
  
    Pietro’s door is ajar. For a moment, Leorio allows himself to pretend that when he enters the room, Pietro will be sitting up in bed, smiling at Leorio and chattering away, whining for an espresso and joking with the nurses. Leorio will put him in the wheelchair and take him down to the cafe, and they’ll watch last night’s Yankees game and talk shit about Zepile’s newest weird painting. Pietro will tease Leorio about Kurapika and elbow him in the ribs, laughing. When Pietro gets tired, Leorio will find something mindless and funny on his phone and let Pietro rest against his shoulder. They’ll sit in the warm morning sun together.  
  
    _Just give me one more day,_ he pleads with whatever deity is listening. _Just one more hour. Just don’t let him be..._ _  
_  
    _Even one more minute. Please. Please._ _  
_  
    He’s not ready to lose Pietro. Their friendship isn’t ready to end. He can’t go on knowing that every second of time with Pietro has already passed into memory. It can’t be over already. It’s not fair. Not yet...  
  
    Leorio can’t breathe. His heart hammers against his throat. He takes another step and pushes open the door.  
  
    The first thing he notices is how quiet it is. A square of morning sunlight filters in through the blinds. The machines are all turned off. Nothing hums or blinks or vibrates. A white sheet is pulled to the top of the bed, covering Pietro completely.  
  
    Leorio walks jerkily towards the bed, reaching out to pull the sheet away from Pietro’s face.  
  
    Pietro’s eyes are closed. His skin is still warm when Leorio touches his cheek, but his face is already turning gray and waxy. Leorio brushes Pietro’s thinning hair off of his forehead and picks up one of his hands. It’s limp and heavy. He leans down to press his ear against Pietro’s sternum, listening for a heartbeat. He can’t hear anything. He can’t find the strength to stand up again, and he slumps to the floor, his head still resting against Pietro.  
  
    It feels like a soundless grenade has exploded inside of his chest. Everything is hollowed out and leveled flat. He tastes the salt of his tears as they slide down his face and into his mouth, but it doesn’t feel like he’s actually crying. The only thing he registers is a vast chasm of rushing emptiness inside of him.  
  
    Leorio strokes Pietro’s forehead and kisses his cheek. He pulls out all of the IVs and wires and monitors, removing every needle from Pietro’s battered body with great care. When he’s finished, he uses a wet washcloth to gently wipe Pietro’s face and neck and hands, cleaning off the orange iodine stains and the ballpoint pen marks from his recent surgeries. Pietro’s hospital gown looks dirty, so Leorio finds a clean one in the closet and swaps them out. Once he’s done everything he can think of, he pulls the blankets up to Pietro’s waist and tucks him in more securely. He sinks onto the bed next to Pietro, awkwardly fitting his too-long legs onto the narrow bed frame. The gaping hole in his chest starts to ache, and he curls into himself, trembling against Pietro’s shoulder.  
  
    It can’t be real. After everything they’ve been through, the months of treatments and false hope and temporary remission and promising drug trials, after the loans and the surgeries and the fierce promises that Leorio made, Pietro can’t be dead.  
  
    In the end, Leorio couldn’t save him. He failed his best friend.  
  
    He doesn’t know how much time passes. The square of sunlight on the floor migrates inch by inch to the right. Pietro’s skin becomes cold. Leorio stares at a broken tile on the floor, a wilting bouquet of gardenias by the window, the pile of paperbacks on the nightstand.  
  
    At some point Leorio becomes aware of other people in the room. Through a numb haze, he looks up to see a vaguely familiar doctor and a chaplain standing near the door, both looking solemn. A nurse hovers in the corner and fusses with a clipboard. Leorio stumbles off of the bed, wiping the snot and tears from his face.  
  
    “Take all the time you need,” the doctor says, patting Leorio on the shoulder stiffly. “We won’t...rush your goodbyes. Just let us know when you’re ready for us to...well, just let us know.”  
  
    Leorio shakes off the doctor’s hand. The doctor takes a step back and murmurs something to the nurse, and she quickly walks away.  
  
    “Was he alone?” Leorio asks. His voice is ragged. “Was he alone when he died?”  
  
    “He declined the pastoral services that we—” the chaplain begins, and Leorio rounds on him, suddenly furious.    
  
    “Just answer my question! Was he alone? Did you all just leave him here to—to—”  
  
    He can’t get another word out. His breathing is coming in erratic spurts, and he begins to pace, gripping at his hair. The doctor stretches out a placating hand.  
  
    “The hospice professionals will be here shortly. We offer a month of free grief counseling for friends and family of the deceased. I’m sure it would—”  
  
    “Fuck off,” Leorio spits, but his anger is already fading. “Just—just give me a little longer,” he finishes weakly, his voice breaking on the last word.  
  
    Leorio knows how hospitals function. It’s not the doctor’s fault that he can’t spend hours with a dying patient when there are living ones to attend to. And of course Pietro didn’t want pastoral services. Pietro wanted to hit on the cute nurses and talk baseball with the janitors. He didn’t want to talk about dying. It’s not the doctor’s fault. It’s not the chaplain’s fault. It’s nobody’s fault but Leorio’s that Pietro breathed his last breath all alone in this bleak hospital room. It slinks into Leorio’s heart and strangles him with an icy hand.  
  
    He will never forgive himself for this. Never.

* * *

   Things start to blur. The morning sun climbs higher in the sky. Leorio loses track of who’s in the room. A hospice worker comes to talk to him. She’s a nice Korean woman in her fifties, and Leorio’s eyes fill with tears when she touches his hand. He answers her questions as well as he can. Cremation, not burial. Leorio will pay. Any funeral home is fine. No, Leorio doesn’t want counseling. No, there’s no family to contact. Yes, the dad is still alive. No, Pietro wasn’t in touch with him. Leorio tries to get things right, but everything is filtering back to him from across a wide dark plain. The woman’s soft voice sounds strangely tinny and out of tune.

   It occurs to Leorio that he’s been awake for about two days straight. He also realizes that he wants nothing more than to hear Kurapika’s voice. He wanders out into the hallway in the middle of some conversation about notifying next-of-kin (hadn’t anyone heard him when he said that Pietro’s dad was worthless?) and pulls out his cell phone. He dials Kurapika’s number and holds the phone to his ear. It rings ten times before going to voicemail.  
  
    “Kurapika Kurta. State your name and business,” Kurapika’s voice instructs him, crisp and formal, and Leorio has no idea what to say.  
  
    _My friend died. My best friend is dead. I don’t know what to do. I hate myself. I let him die. He was all alone. I don’t know what I need from you, but you’re the only person who would understand._ _  
_  
    “Kurapika...” he begins, “please call me back. Please just...I really want to talk to you. Please.” He takes a shuddering breath. “I just...I wanna hear your voice. Please don’t do the thing where you pretend you never get my—”  
  
    The voicemail cuts off with a beep. Leorio pockets his phone and wipes a sleeve across his face.  
  
    He goes back into the hospital room. The sight of Pietro’s body knocks the wind out of him all over again, and the hospice worker puts a hand on his shoulder.  
  
    “Let us know when you’re ready,” she says.  
  
    In the brighter mid-morning light, Pietro’s body no longer looks like Pietro. Leorio knows that Pietro wouldn’t like everyone seeing him like this, so he turns to the hospice worker and takes a deep breath.  
  
    “I think it’s time. You can call...them...now.”  
  
    “Are you sure?”  
  
    “I’m sure,” Leorio replies quietly. “He wouldn’t want this.”    
  
    She nods kindly and steps out of the room to make the phone call. Leorio turns away and claps a hand over his mouth, fighting back a wail.  
  
    After that, it doesn’t take long. The undertakers are straight out of central casting; somber and Italian and sweating through their ill-fitting dark suits. They step back respectfully as Leorio leans down to hold Pietro’s thin frame in his arms.  
  
    “Goodbye, buddy,” he whispers into Pietro’s hair. “I love you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”  
  
    He kisses Pietro’s cheek one last time and wrenches himself away.  
  
    Leorio can’t watch when they take out the body bag. He wants to be brave and witness the whole thing for Pietro’s sake, but it’s too much. He turns and faces the corner until the room is empty.  
  
    And then it’s over, and he’s alone, and Pietro is gone.

* * *

     Leorio isn’t sure how he makes it back to his apartment. Did he take the subway? Did he take a cab? It doesn’t matter. He forgot his backpack, too. It doesn’t matter. Zepile isn’t home, and Leorio doesn’t know if he feels upset or relieved by his absence.  
  
    He stands in the kitchen and looks out the window at the street below. People are going about their business as always; businessmen carry briefcases, moms push strollers full of toddlers, young couples hold hands, vendors set out their fruits and vegetables. It’s exhausting to watch. Don’t they know that none of it matters? Don’t they know that it’s all a waste of time? It’s a beautiful day. Big puffy clouds drift across a bright blue sky. The colors look shockingly unreal. How can someone die on such a nice day?  
  
    Leorio checks the date on Zepile’s lame Sports Illustrated bikini model calendar on the fridge. It’s April 28th. So Pietro died on April 28th. Exactly one month after his 24th birthday. Pietro never even got to rent a car. Laughing humorlessly, Leorio digs around in the cabinets and finds a half-empty handle of Wild Turkey whiskey. He unscrews it and gulps it straight from the bottle until his eyes are watering and his cheeks are flushed. He checks his phone, and there’s nothing from Kurapika. Fuck. He picks up the bottle again and drinks until it’s empty.  
  
    Swaying, Leorio heads into the bathroom and turns on the shower. He wipes the steam off of the mirror and glances at his reflection, hiccuping. He looks like shit; he’s puffy and swollen from the plane and the booze, and his eyes are sunken into his face. He thinks of Pietro’s waxy features and feels a lurch of sour nausea. Dropping to his knees, he pukes up an impressive amount of Wild Turkey into the toilet, gasping and shivering.  
  
    The shower helps a little. As usual, the building’s water heater is completely fucked, but the cool temperature relieves some of his pounding headache. He stands without moving until the water turns frigid.  
  
    Most of his clothes are in the dirty laundry, so Leorio pads into Zepile’s dirty room and finds a clean-ish pair of sweatpants. He puts them on and hesitates for a moment. For some reason, the idea of sleeping in his own bed seems too weird. How can he sleep in his bed when Pietro is dead? It doesn’t add up. Instead, he takes the pillows and comforters from his bed and drags them into the living room, making a nest for himself on the floor. He collapses into the pile of bedding and curls up under the blankets.  
  
    It’s only when he’s lying down with his eyes closed that it finally hits him at full force. He’s wracked with agonized sobs, hot tears stinging his eyes. His grief is panicked and terrified and constricting. Crying is no relief. Pietro is gone, gone, gone, and his body is zipped into a bag in the morgue, all alone in the dark and the cold. Did Pietro know that he was dying? He must have been so scared. He must have been so sad. He hated that hospital so much. Leorio weeps until his stomach hurts and his eyes burn.

* * *

   He falls asleep on the floor and wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of the garbage trucks trundling around on the street below. His neck hurts and he’s desperately thirsty. He makes it to the kitchen to gulp down a glass of tap water before he remembers: Pietro is dead. It hits him like a sledgehammer, and he starts to cry again as he stands in the shadowy kitchen. He can’t fathom feeling anything except this crushing grief ever again.  
  
    The silence in the apartment is dreadful. Leorio wants to call someone just to hear a human voice, Senritsu or Zepile or even Gon, but it’s 3 in the morning. Instead, he plugs in his laptop and puts on an old episode of Seinfeld. He can’t follow the plot at all, but it’s nice to hear people talking. He gets back into his blanket nest and tries to sleep. He thinks of Pietro in the morgue again and starts to shake, curling into a ball under the comforter.

* * *

     The next time Leorio wakes up it’s morning again. He can’t figure out where he is or what day it is, but he remembers Pietro’s death before his eyes are even open. It dawns on him that he will think about it every time he wakes up for a very long time. Already, though, the pain has changed from an acute sharpness to a heavier, duller weight. He’s already getting used to it, and that alone makes him feel even more terribly sad.

Three days pass. Leorio doesn’t leave the apartment. He takes fitful naps in his blanket pile and drinks whiskey on the fire escape until everything is dull and floaty. The gorgeous weather persists, and he wishes it would rain. He finds a crumpled pack of cigarettes in a kitchen drawer and smokes four of them, hacking and coughing.  
  
    There’s still no word from Kurapika. Leorio calls over and over, and it goes straight to voicemail every time. When he searches for Neon Nostrade on Facebook and Instagram, hoping to reach out to see if she knows anything, all of her accounts are private and unaccessible.  
  
    He fears the worst. On the second night, he goes online and reads through the police blotter for Brooklyn and Manhattan, just in case, but nothing in the sea of robberies and break-ins and assaults seems mob related. By the third night, he’s calling the morgues at every local hospital he can think of, asking if anyone matching Kurapika’s description has been brought in. Nothing turns up, but he braces himself for the possibility.  
  
    Zepile, it turns out, is out of town on a big commission for some rich guy in Maine who wanted a knockoff Chagall for his ski lodge. Senritsu calls to offer her condolences, promising to visit as soon as she returns from her tour in Brazil. A box shows up at the doorstep, messily packaged in leftover Christmas wrapping paper. Inside is a threadbare stuffed frog and a card from Gon.  
  
    _Dear Leorio, Im really really sorry about your friend. I know you loved him a lot and you were best friends. I know you are really sad right now and I wanted you to have my old frog because when I was little it made me feel better. Love, Gon_ _  
_  
    Leorio’s throat closes up. He takes the frog and the letter and places them by his blanket pile so he can see them while he’s falling asleep.  
  
    The loan companies call, too. Leorio ignores them and lets it go to voicemail. When urgent emails from his bank start piling up in his inbox, he deletes them without a glance. It doesn’t matter.

* * *

   On the fourth day, the funeral home calls. Pietro’s ashes are ready to be picked up. Leorio thanks them and hangs up the phone, staring at the wall. An array of frightening logistical questions begin to present themselves.  
  
    Pietro didn’t want a funeral, but what did he want done with his ashes? Would he want Leorio to keep them? Was that...weird? The idea of having them sitting around the apartment seemed awful, but scattering them somewhere was even worse. They had never talked about it. How the hell was Leorio supposed to bring it up? _Oh, by the way, pal, when you kick the bucket, what should I do with you? Stuff you in my closet underneath my chemistry books? Put you on the mantel like a decoration? Bury you? Dump you in the Hudson River? Cook you in an omelette?_ Every option feels wrong. He tugs at his hair, frustrated.  
  
    Leorio feels compelled to change into his black suit before leaving. The jacket is rumpled and smells like mothballs, but wearing sweatpants seems disrespectful somehow. He starts to sweat through the suit immediately, his white button-down shirt clinging to his armpits and neck. Walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge, he pulls out the last two cans of Modelo and downs them both, hunched over the counter. When he’s finished, he tosses the cans into the overflowing recycling bin and picks up his phone and wallet, moving slowly. He’s in no rush to complete the errand.  
  
    The funeral home is in midtown Manhattan, five stops away on the subway. Leorio’s head is buzzing from the beer, and the train ride feels surreal, a wash of blurred faces and muted sound. It’s almost five in the afternoon, so the train is crowded with commuters.  
  
    _Damn, I’m drunk,_ he realizes, surprised. Usually two beers wouldn’t faze him, but he hasn’t eaten anything except a few stale pretzels since Pietro died. Food sounds repulsive. He closes his eyes and leans against the window until the train lurches into the station. From there, it’s a short walk to the place. It’s cold and windy again. Leorio turns up the collar of his suit jacket against the damp air.  
  
    “Welcome, welcome,” the mortician murmurs when Leorio arrives, offering a clammy handshake and ushering him inside. The parlor is dimly lit and smells of formaldehyde and lilies. “Please, take a seat. This won’t take long.”  
  
    Leorio sits at the polished mahogany table in the corner and waits for the guy to finish shuffling the paperwork. He glances around at the urns on display and fights back a snort of laughter; they’re so tacky. Some are adorned with sparkly American flags, some have Norman Rockwell-esque paintings of famous landmarks and cute animals on them, some are camouflage themed, and some, inexplicably, are functioning clocks. Amused, Leorio shakes his head in disbelief. Who the fuck would want to be interred in a clock? Instinctively, he reaches for his phone to text Pietro, and the realization hits him like a battering ram all over again.  
  
    “If you’ll just sign right here, sir,” the mortician is saying, and Leorio realizes that he’s been zoning out. He blinks back to reality and picks up a pen to scrawl his signature on the bottom of the form.  
  
    “Very good. And how will you be paying today?”  
  
    _Shit_ .  
  
    “Uh,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, “well. Is, um, credit okay?”  
  
    His cards are already maxed out, but he has no other option. The mortician looks up from the paperwork, frowning slightly.  
  
    “Generally, sir, we prefer checks, but...” he trails off, looking Leorio up and down. “Are you his brother?” His voice grows warmer. “Forgive me for saying this, but generally people your age don’t have to deal with this kind of thing on their own.”  
  
    “I’m...I was his friend.”  
  
    “Ah. I’m very sorry for your loss.” The mortician hesitates for a moment, chewing on a pen. “Look, uh, if this is a...uh, a financial impossibility for you at the moment, what I can do is offer you a payment plan. Pay half now, the rest divided up into installments over the next year. Only thing is it collects interest the longer you wait, so it’s better to do it as soon as you can. Would you like to sign up for that?”  
  
    More debt is the last thing he needs, but what choice does he have? Sighing, Leorio nods and hands over his credit card.

* * *

    Ten minutes later he’s back on the subway, wedged between two portly businessmen and  holding an unmarked brown paper bag in his lap. In a bizarre touch, the funeral home guy tied a festive purple ribbon to the handle.  
  
    Inside the bag is a cardboard box. It’s as heavy as a dumbbell but shockingly small; about the size of a shoebox.  
  
    It’s profoundly weird that the entirety of Pietro’s physical existence could be reduced to this. Every soccer kick, every backflip, every note played on the piano, every word, every hug, every touch of his hands, every thump of his heart; in the end it was all just a pile of dust and bone fragments.  
  
    Leorio holds the bag carefully upright in his lap and tries not to think about it. He clenches his jaw and feels a muscle twitch in his cheek. The man to his left notices and shifts away, looking unnerved.

* * *

    When he gets home, he puts the ashes on his desk and stares at them for a while. He has no idea what to do with them. He feels utterly incapable of making decisions.

   To distract himself, he opens up his laptop and goes online. It’s been days since he’s known what’s going on in the outside world. He scrolls through Facebook and reads about high school friends getting engaged and promoted and having babies and buying houses. He skims through a few headlines on CNN about horrible bombings in the Mideast and police shootings in the Midwest and and an Ebola outbreak in Northern Africa. Brazil elected a new president. A plane crashed in Indonesia, killing all 274 passengers. Some English princess was having a baby. Scientists have decided that butter is bad for you again. The stock market was rising, or crashing, or something dramatic; Leorio gets bored and clicks out of the article.

    It all seems so pointless. Leorio can’t bring himself to care about any of it; it seemed improbable that all of this stuff was still happening when his own personal world had just come to an end. Why did people bother with getting married or taking vacations or investing in stocks when you were just going to die anyways? Why go to all of that trouble?

    He’s about to close the laptop in disgust when another CNN headline catches his eye, under the “World News” section.

_MAN FOUND DEAD IN TOKYO SUBURB_

_Officials in Daikanyama discovered the body of an unidentified man buried in a shallow grave 4 kilometers outside of Tokyo city limits early Tuesday morning. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the back of the skull. Police are treating the case as an active homicide investigation. Although the victim’s identity is unknown, police have reported that the man was carrying a ticket stub from the Mainichi Auction House. Security footage from the auction house show the victim entering the building at 9:27 the previous morning. No footage can be found of when the victim left the building._

    Leorio’s hands shake. He skims quickly through the rest of the article to find a grainy still taken from the security camera footage. He can barely bring himself to look, but after a quick muttered prayer he gazes at the screen to see a photograph of a huge, long-haired man he’s never seen before.

    He releases a breath. This can’t be good. But at least it wasn’t Kurapika.

* * *

    That night the nightmares begin.  
  
    In some dreams, Leorio walks into the hospital and finds Pietro’s body, over and over and over. Sometimes Pietro is alive long enough to gaze reproachfully at Leorio and whisper something inaudible, and Leorio wants to run to his bedside to speak to him, but before he can move, Pietro dies in front of him, gasping in agony.  
  
    In other dreams, he’s lost in the hospital. The rooms are overgrown with dense jungle, and the floor is a murky swamp. Pietro struggles through a thicket of thorny vines and disappears into the mud before Leorio can pull him out.  
  
    He wakes intermittently throughout the night, clammy and tangled in his pile of blankets on the floor, but he’s so tired that he keeps drifting off again, sinking back down into the feeling of Pietro always out of reach, always breathing with a wretched death rattle until he goes silent and pale and horribly cold.

* * *

   At one point Leorio sees Kurapika standing before him in the darkness, wild-eyed and vivid, inky stains splattered across his tunic and pants. Leorio tries to speak to him, but before long the dream changes and he’s back in the hospital room watching Pietro die again. Even in the dream he can feel himself crying; deep, guttural, aching sobs that wrench through his chest and throat. He curls into himself and waits for it to pass.

* * *

   It’s just before dawn, and the apartment is suffused with gray half-light. It’s storming again. The pigeons are cooing on the windowsill, their quiet sounds mingling with the patter of the raindrops. Thunder rumbles in the distance.  
  
    At first Leorio thinks that he must have woken up because of the rain. He stretches and yawns, struggling to remember what day it is or where he is.  
  
    After a moment, he realizes that someone is sitting next to him on the floor. He cracks open one exhausted eye to see a face hovering above him in the shadows.  
  
    “You’re finally awake,” Kurapika says. His voice is achingly familiar. “You’re a heavy sleeper, you know. You didn’t even notice me coming in.”  
  
    Kurapika is sitting on the floor with his knees tucked into his chest about a foot away from Leorio. He’s still wearing his black Tokyo suit, and there are deep, bruised-looking shadows under his eyes. He’s as pale as a ghost, his face almost glowing in the pre-dawn light.  
  
    Leorio is so tired and hurt that he doesn’t have the energy to ask a single question. He doesn’t even have the energy to keep his eyes open. Nothing makes sense anymore.  
  
    “How did you get in?” he mumbles. “Door was locked.”  
  
    Kurapika clears his throat. “Your, er, lock isn’t very good. I’ll arrange for a locksmith to repair it.”  
  
    Leorio waves a hand in his direction. “S’okay.”  
  
    “I’m sorry, Leorio.”  
  
    “S’fine. Landlady’ll fix it. S’fine.”  
  
    “No, I...I’m sorry about Pietro, Leorio. I’m so sorry.”  
  
    Leorio stares at the ceiling and remembers, his stomach filling with lead.  
  
    “Oh.” He blinks back the sudden rush of burning tears. “How’d you find out?”  
  
    “I guessed,” Kurapika says, very quietly. “I had hoped I was mistaken, but...”  
  
    He trails off, picking at the hem of his dress pants. Leorio closes his eyes again, listening to the rain and Kurapika’s breathing.  
  
    “I wanted to check on you,” Kurapika says after a pause.“But I apologize for my intrusion. I’ll be on my way, now, and I’ll be sure to send over the locksmith later.”  
  
    “Sure,” Leorio replies, his voice barely above a whisper. “Thanks for stopping by.”  
  
    Leorio feels the floorboards creak as Kurapika shifts his weight. He longs for Kurapika to touch him, so badly that it feels like a physical pain. Even just one brush of a hand, one pat on the back, a ruffle of his hair. He wants this so terribly, more than any other moment, but the thought of asking for it, even now in this strange surreal dream-space, feels pathetic and implausible.  
  
    Kurapika is an island always out of reach. Always formal and reserved and self-contained, even in the closest quarters.  
  
    The garbage trucks are clanking around down on the street already, waking up the birds and the neighborhood dogs. The subway shakes the floor. A knot is building up in Leorio’s chest. He takes a shaky inhale, trying to suppress it, but it’s no good; his mind fills with images of Pietro’s body in the hospital all over again.  
  
    “M’ sorry, Kurapika, I don’t want you to see me like this, right after everything you just went through...” He sniffles and tries to control himself. “T-t-thanks for checking on me. I’ll be okay, I just—I wasn’t ready for him to—to—” His voice breaks into a sob, and he turns away, mortified, to bury his face in the pillow. “Oh, God.”  
  
    Kurapika is getting to his feet, dusting off the knees of his pants.  
  
    “Leorio, I...”  
  
    “It’s fine, just go,” Leorio says dully, wiping his eyes. “It’s okay.”  
  
    Kurapika hesitates.  
  
    “Leorio. Do...do you trust me?”  
  
    “Why do you keep asking that?” Leorio croaks, half-laughing through the tears. “It’s never good when you ask me that.”  
  
    “No, I...” Kurapika starts, twisting his hands together. “I just...would it...would it be all right if I... helped you?”  
  
    “...What?”  
  
    “I know that some people don’t care for any contact or companionship during a...time like this...but others, well. They do. So.” He takes a deep breath. “Would it...help?”  
  
    Leorio’s overworked heart flutters like a bird in his chest. He gazes up at Kurapika, searching his ashen face for clues that this is some kind of joke, but when Kurapika meets his eyes, his expression as open and tender as Leorio has ever seen it.  
  
    For a long time, Leorio says nothing, too afraid to break the spell.  
  
    “Yes,” he says at last. Just that one word. _Yes_ .  
  
    Without a sound, Kurapika leans down to help Leorio off the ground. He guides him across the living room floor and eases him onto the couch, adjusting a pillow under his head. Once Leorio is stretched out over the cushions, Kurapika sinks down next to him and lays a palm against Leorio’s forehead.  
  
    Kurapika’s skin is wonderfully cool, as soothing as fresh water. Overwhelmed with emotion, Leorio closes his eyes.  
  
    “You’ve got a fever,” Kurapika says softly, and begins to gently card his fingers through Leorio’s hair. “I’ll find you medicine. Have you been drinking water? I’ll get you some.”  
  
    “Don’t leave,” Leorio says, his voice a papery rasp. “Stay here.”  
  
    “I will,” Kurapika murmurs, and it’s the first time that Leorio has heard his voice completely free of its usual acerbic bite. “I’m right here.”  
  
    He resumes his careful strokes, moving to trace the edge of Leorio’s jaw, his eyebrows, the dip underneath his lips. Every touch sends a shivering tingle down Leorio’s spine.  
  
    “When did you get back?” Leorio asks, barely moving his mouth. He feels like any loud noises or sudden movements might startle Kurapika away like a sparrow from a tree branch. “Where have you been?”  
  
    “Just now,” Kurapika says, answering half of the questions. “Red-eye into JFK.”  
  
    “You must be tired.”  
  
    “I’m fine.”  
  
    His voice is exhausted. Leorio turns his head almost imperceptibly, just enough to brush against the side of Kurapika’s leg.


End file.
